


Eddie (Since You’ve Been Gone)

by Ourladyofresurrection



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Angst, Cuddling, Eddie’s not dead, First Kiss, First Time, Fluff, IT Chapter Two Spoilers, Internalized Homophobia, Love Confessions, M/M, Mentions of homophobia, Movie: IT Chapter Two (2019), Post-Canon Fix-It, Reddie, Reunited and It Feels So Good, Richie Tozier/Eddie Kasprak - Freeform, Richie is mourning and in love with Eddie, Slow Burn, Takes place three weeks after the final battle with IT, the happy ending we all deserve
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-20
Updated: 2020-03-11
Packaged: 2020-10-21 20:38:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 35
Words: 102,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20699522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ourladyofresurrection/pseuds/Ourladyofresurrection
Summary: “Look, Beverly. I don’t need you to check in on me—“ he started, looking out towards the dead canal.“Richie,” she said breathily, voice sounding shaky, like how it was when she told everyone Stan was dead.Richie sat up straighter, curiosity piquing as his heart thudded wildly in his chest.“Richie, I—“ she started, and made a faint sniffling, choked-off sob sound over the receiver. He heard her take a deep breath.“Richie,” she said shakily, “I think Eddie’s alive.”Three weeks after the Losers’ final battle of IT, Richie has been struggling to come to grips with Eddie’s death, ruminating over the one that got away and the truth he’d never been able to confront.Then Beverly has a vision that Eddie is still alive and trapped in the sewers, and his past resurfaces. Conflicted by joy over seeing Eddie again and wrestling with his own repressed feelings for him, Richie realizes that he must confront his own secrets, no matter the cost.That is, if Eddie even makes it out alive





	1. Chapter One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Three weeks after their final battle with It, four out of the five remaining members of the Losers Club have left Derry, all too eager to forget the horrors that had come back to haunt them. But not everyone moved on so easily. Grief-riddled and searching for closure after Eddie's death, Richie returns to the Kenduskeag, where he receives a shocking call from Beverly.

_Richie stared out into the empty canal, not unlike how Don Haggarty had dazedly staggered down the spill of rocks to rescue Adrian just three weeks before. The spot where Pennywise had stood that fateful night, however, sat empty and hollow— the grass matted and flat with rain.  The only hint of the event was a single deflated shell of a red balloon, strewn in the grasses like morbid tinsel on a Christmas tree. The sight made Richie sick, and yet he couldn’t bring himself to discard of it— watching it taunt him from across the water._

He made an excuse to himself about not wanting to provoke It, but he knew it was null. It was dead, right alongside Eddie, and there was nothing in Heaven or Earth that could possibly change that fact.

Truth be told, Richie was keeping everything in the state it was three weeks ago, back when they first reconvened after 27 long years at the Chinese restaurant. Back when the horrors seemed mountable. Back when Eddie was still around.

It felt wrong— felt wrong to move anything. Felt wrong to stop coming down here because one of these days, Eddie— oh,  Eddie , was going to march down here to this shitty canal and tell Richie exactly how many diseases he was currently exposing himself to. And everything would be okay again. And it would be just like it was when they were kids— him and Eddie bickering back and forth, Richie trying to not let it show on his face as he fell impossibly deeper in love with him.

Richie needed to be there when it happened. And if he was waiting for a day that would never come, well, that’s nobody’s fucking business except for his own.

There exists only a certain level of insanity one can be exposed to before the suffocating walls of reality are breached forever. There is no going back from that— seeing the other side of the coin. T here is no going back from dethroning God— that’s the thing. Because once He falls, He is nothing more than a human— measly and small and spitting up dirt like everyone else. Maybe God was a human after all. Maybe complete power lied within the self. 

Richie’s parents would have spanked him raw, had he smartly proposed that idea the summer of 1989, clinging perhaps more tightly to their Presbyterian beliefs than to their own son.  It’s a lonely thought— being truly alone on the Earth. Even atheists, deep down inside, would tremble at the genuine, overwhelming face of being utterly on your own in the universe.  And the things Richie had seen...well, they were the kind of things that either drove a person towards God, or utterly away from Him.

Richie hadn’t figured out quite where he fit into that yet.

All Richie knew was that there was a natural order of things, and for good reason too. The Earth revolves around the Sun, and every morning that sun comes over the horizon, clear as day. The tapestry of bright lights in the sky are flames. The Sun burns there too.  Mondays were always shitty and Rock and Roll never went out of style, and with each inhale and exhale of the Earth, life prospered and covered every inch of it like a plague. And beneath the surface of Derry, in the deep, rotten stink of the dark, It lived. Watching. Waiting.

And above all else, where even logic failed to reach—he loved Eddie. He loved him so much it hurt. He always would. It was as certain as the sun rising every morning and setting every night.

These were just some of the truths Richie Tozier had come to accept over the years— some sooner than others, but all just as true.  And like humans did best, he adapted. His life was now governed by these rules, and yet— ceased to be changed by them.  Of course, he would never forget the face of It deep down inside, a person always remembers the face of their greatest fear, no matter how hard they try not to. But life moved on.  He got a job, and nobody was more surprised than him when he discovered he was good at it. Great at it, even. He moved to California, miles and miles away from that old town of Derry, and he learned to forget.

And all of that was shattered in an instant the minute Mike Hanlon picked up the phone that fateful night.

It takes a lifetime to build a world for yourself, and only a single moment to break it.

And that was just another unfair, horrific truth Richie Tozier had come to learn. Just like that— his sanity taking a nosedive, fleeting entirely somewhere between the moment he first remembered Derry to the moment he couldn’t bring himself to leave.

_No wonder Stan killed himself_,  Richie thought.

And he wailed to himself—  _if there can be entities older than any human stalking the sewer pipes and things that lurk in the dark, why can’t there be life after death? _Who the fuck is anyone to say that Eddie can’t be right next to Richie right now? Who are they to deprive him of that? 

“Who the  _fuck _are you?!” he yelled.

The river gurgled in response, lazily lapping at the sun-bleached base of the grey bridge as it flowed on, as if oblivious to the horrors that had transpired in it over the years.

The water looked black and endlessly deep— like whatever sat behind It’s haunting white eyes.  The small ripples in the water and quiet bubbling sounds were the only indication it was a moving, breathing thing. The sound revolted him.

_How dare you__,_ Richie thought lividly,  _how dare you carry on living like everything’s okay when Eddie’s dead._

He thought back to that moment in the quarry, when the remaining Losers had gathered around him in the water, clutching onto his arm and making jokes.  Jokes— like  now was a time for those, if ever. He remembered how Ben and Beverly boarded a yacht, petting their pet dog— fur curly with water-drops as the sun went down on them, only to rise the next morning.

_How fucking nice for you_, Richie thought bitterly, perhaps a little unfairly,  _do you know what I would do to see him again? Hold him again?_

Richie couldn’t help but feel like the sun set on him the moment Eddie’s last breath left his gaping mouth, and he hadn’t seen it since, left shivering and alone, looking for the golden line across the horizon, waiting for the only warmth he’d ever known to return to his life.

It was exceptionally chilly down by the canal, the sharp salt-kissed breeze abrasively cool against his face as he stared blankly over the horizon.  In a moment of mad impulse, he wished Pennywise was standing on the other side of that canal.

“Where are you now, fucker— _huh?”_ he yelled, “Why don’t you come on out and do that little jig of yours? Sing about my  _dirty little secret,__”_ he spat.

“You’re not the first fucker in this town who wants to kill the  fairies,  you know,” he yawped, “you’re not original,  bimbo!  You’d think after this many years you’d think of something more creative!”

He knew he shouldn’t be talking so loudly about the boy he loved. Even if Pennywise may be gone, there existed a kind of undeniable evil surrounding Derry that had nothing to do with It. Perhaps that was even more horrifying than the monster itself.  Richie could feel the trepidation coiling tightly in his stomach before receding like a tide, like an iron glove closing around his insides and squeezing. He kept waiting for It to appear, to come kill him. Punish him. _Taunt _him.

But he was only met with the sound of silence, and the beginning sniffles of a floodgate of tears building behind his eyes.

“You can’t _hurt me, __ asshole__,”_ he wailed hoarsely, the sound resonating statically from his throat, “you  already ripped my heart out, you fucking clown bastard. You hurt me worse than dead when you took him away from me.”

“...And you knew,” he murmured, voice the special kind of quiet that only showed up when one was teetering over the dizzying precipice of hysterics, “you  _knew__,_” he repeated, sobbing.

He fell to his knees, forehead lolling against the grass as he beat his fists onto the ground like a child having a temper tantrum.

“He’s all I ever wanted, you know,” he sobbed brokenly, tone almost nonsensical in his despair, “why couldn’t you have taken  me?”

For the hundredth time that night alone, Richie’s pleads were met with utter and dead silence, which somehow felt more disrespectful than anything that could be said.

Richie slammed his fists against the ground until they were mud-caked, aching and bleeding, “Why not _me__,”_ he wailed into the night, “why _ him_, oh God no,  _please not him.” _

The wind whistled as it cut through the night, crickets chirping in the distance. Life in Derry carried on.

Richie laid down in the dirt and cried.

He must have been there awhile— time seemed to melt and slip away lately, and he’d stopped bothering to wear a watch. He didn’t need another reminder of how long Eddie has been gone. He didn’t need that sliver of hope to see the setting sun just yet.  He broke out of his trance when he felt a vibration in his jean pocket, radiating up his leg. He briefly wondered if his leg had gone numb, having the same kind of staticky feeling, and then deduced his phone was ringing when he heard his stupid ringtone.

He fumbled for his phone, sniffling as he swiped the back of his hand under his nose.

He looked at the caller ID: 

_ (incoming call from Chicago, Illinois) _

Bev.

He scoffed, shaking his head as he shoved his phone back into his pocket. He really didn’t need another Loser-Gang pep-talk, not right now. Not ever.  The phone stopped ringing and fell still. Richie breathed a sigh of relief, easing back into his previous position.

Silence.

And then the phone started ringing again.

“For fuck’s sake—“ he grumbled, tears prickling in his eyes in frustration, clumsily pulling out the phone.

He adjusted his glasses, which had pressed into his face from lying on the ground, and shakily pressed _‘accept call.’_

“Look, Beverly. I don’t need you to check in on me—“ he started.

“Richie,” she said breathily, voice sounding shaky, like how it was when she told everyone Stan was dead.

Richie sat up straighter, curiosity piquing as his heart thudded wildly in his chest.  He heard a creak on the other end of the line, and he figured that must be Ben shifting on the bed, waking up, followed by a small click he immediately attributed to a bedside lamp being turned on.

“Richie, I—“ she started, and made a faint sniffling, choked-off sob sound over the receiver. He heard her take a deep breath.

_“Richie,”_ she said shakily, _“I think Eddie’s alive.”_


	2. Chapter Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Back in the sewers, a badly wounded Eddie is beginning to wake, plagued by memories of his younger years and the horrifying realization that he is now all alone.

_ Eddie woke up cold, alone, and very scared. _

He took a wheezing gasp as his eyes flew open, landing blearily on the familiar grey-blue ceiling of the sewers. He keeled over onto his side, coughing as black mucus left his throat, dribbling wetly over his bottom lip.  He retched a few times, body trembling with the effort as his hands struggled to steel him upright. He didn’t want to lay back down in fear he might slip back into a coma— is that how it works? Who cares. The point was, Eddie didn’t want to.

But like his ever-coaxing mother, his own crippling weakness romanced him back onto the cement floor, head swimming from the sudden movement.

He screwed his eyes shut, trying to rid of the small white circles in his field of vision— the kind you get after waking up from a long nap, but much more solidified.  He let out a wheezing breath, the kind that would normally make him reach for his aspirator— that small blue vessel that fit perfectly in his pocket like a lifeline. He ached to feel that familiar sickly-sweet battery acid taste as it filled his lungs.

His aspirator— where was it? He shot up, reaching blindly for it, patting down his jean pockets. The realization dawned on him like a flaming sun—  He had thrown it into the fire. The Chüd ritual that was supposed to save them from It. That was his sacrifice.

_ Some good that did _ , he thought dizzily, head lolling back as he willed the room stop spinning, hands closing instinctively over his knees as he tried to gather his bearings.

_God, I wish Richie hadn’t taken that damn aspirator out of my hand,_ he thought.

_“You’re braver than you think,” _ the words echoed sweetly in his head. 

He scoffed at that, disrupting a heavy weight on his chest, and he coughed loudly. 

_ Not brave, Rich. I stood in the corner and cowered as that thing almost mauled you. You could have died. _

His chest constricted and protested at the damp air and his growing panic. He clutched his chest.

“Not brave, Richie, not brave. I’m not brave enough, _please _Richie,  _ please_ _,”_ he cried, panic rising in his throat.

He let his eyes fall closed as tears prickled behind his eyes, his stomach one big twisting, convulsive knot inside.  Richie had always protected him when they were kids— especially after coming face to face with It.  He fondly remembered one time, just a week after they had emerged from the sewers for the first time, all seven of them intact and present. 

Some asshole had jumped out from around the corner, startling Eddie as he leered down at him with unsmiling, cruel eyes. Eddie screamed— not so much out of fear of the bully, but who— or rather  _what _he thought it was. He had still been waiting for It to come back, even after they’d seen him shrink defeatedly back into the sewers. The paranoia still resonated strongly within him. Maybe he always knew, deep down inside, that it wouldn’t be the last time he’d see the clown’s unforgiving eyes.

Richie had jumped in front of Eddie, swinging a punch at the guy, having the height advantage Eddie lacked due to his lanky stature, even at age thirteen.  Amazingly, his fist collided with the guy’s cheekbone, blood erupting awesomely from his jaw, spilling over his lips. Richie himself looked surprised, but above all else, he looked livid.

_ Livid. _

A word he would struggle to find, only to realise it was exactly how he looked that day.  _Why? _ he wanted to ask Richie, _why were you so mad, Rich? _

He never did get a chance to ask him, however, because at that moment, Richie got his own punch to the face, his bruised lip swelling up nastily as he cried out, struggling to get away.  Eddie stood frozen, watching numbly as blood started to spew from Richie’s mouth, mingling with his saliva as it dripped anticlimactically to the ground.  A car could be heard turning around the corner, and the boy gave Richie one last hook straight to the eye before taking off, clutching his crooked-looking nose.

A few minutes later, Eddie and Richie were crouching outside the pharmacy, much like they had with Ben, Stan, and Bill earlier that summer when Ben Hanscom fled from the Bowers gang.  In his hand, Eddie held a pack of ice, which he pressed tentatively under Richie’s eye. “You’re damn lucky I have a tab here, Trashmouth.”

“Yeah, yeah, my _hero,_” Richie rolled his eyes, “hey Eds, did’ya tell Mr. Keene to give you a refill on Mrs. K’s birth control pills? ‘Cause she’s gonna need those.”

Eddie just rolled his eyes, used to Richie's teasing by now. He did, however, mash the bag of ice harder against his cheek in retaliation. “That is _so_ fucking disgusting. And don’t call me Eds.”

Richie just looked at him, grinning as his eyes sparkled, glasses beside him on the pavement, “Ah, you know you love it.”

Eddie didn’t respond to that, instead pressing the ice-pack firmly against Richie’s cheek. He did hate it...but he also liked it a little too. 

Now, more than ever he wished Richie was there with him.

Eddie pulled his knees up closer to his chest and began to cry.


	3. Chapter Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A distressed Richie finds it hard to believe Beverly's claims and continues to wrestle with his own grief.

_ Richie felt his heart stop in his chest as his blood ran ice cold, “Bev,” he said shakily, “this isn’t funny.” _

She paused over the receiver, and Richie could tell by her tone of voice as she proceeded that she was hurt, “Richie, I wouldn’t joke about this. I know you l—“ 

She cut herself off, and Richie flushed, cheeks fiery red as he realised was she was going to say.  She continued carefully, taking in a sharp breath, “I know you...cared about him, a lot. You two had a special bond—“

“What?” he said, trying to sound amused, but his traitor voice gave him away as a whimper escaped from the back of his throat. He coughed. “Don’t know about Eds, but Mrs. K and I sure had a connection—“

“ _ Richie _ _,_” Beverly interrupted.

Richie’s quip died on his tongue, and Beverly persisted, sounding tired and  _scared_, “My point is, Richie, we  all care about him. I wouldn’t make this up.”

The funny thing about wanting something you know you can never have, is that when someone tells you that you can, you won’t believe it. You’ll protest it with such hatred and_ fear_ in your voice, as if you don't dream of having it every night, as if you don't want it so much it physically _hurts_. Because we all keep our safety blankets, and sometimes we fall in love with shadows of people because we think we don’t deserve the real thing— couldn’t  _handle_ the real thing. Richie spent his entire life being told he couldn’t have Eddie— the reasons were mounting. He couldn’t have Eddie because boys don’t like boys. He couldn’t have Eddie because best friends don’t look at each other like that. He couldn’t have Eddie because Eddie was gone and he wasn’t ever coming back. And he was miserably comfortable in this truth. And now he could have Eddie? It felt like a cruel trick. A taunt. Coaxing him to reach out and grab his hand, only for him to be ripped away at the last second, and then everyone would know his  _dirty little secret._

Having Eddie seemed too good to be true. So Richie did what he did best— refute.

“So let me get this straight— Eddie’s alive? Because he looked pretty dead when he was lying li—“ Richie’s voice cracked. He took a breath before trying again, voice raising, “when he was lying lifeless in my arms.”

Richie had the phone in a death-grip. He was pacing now like a caged lion, or the lion’s prey watching the beast get closer and closer to him while all he could do was watch and hope he could run faster than his own heart and his own debilitating fear...His fist clenched and unclenched sporadically beside him.

“Richie, I can’t explain it,” she said softly, and he felt guilty. He was being an asshole, he knew it. But he couldn’t find it in him to make his humour good-natured right now.

“Yeah,” he said, laughing drily, holding the phone to his ear as he stared up at the moon, “join the club.”

He heard a soft sigh on the other end, and he was willing to bet that Hanscom had her wrapped in his arms right now, comforting her, burying his face in her  _January ember__s_ hair. He had the love of his life beside him, and _nothing_ could change that. Richie felt a twitch of envy deep inside his stomach, climbing up his throat as grief reared it’s ugly head, yanking at his heart.

“Look,” she said, “I’m not telling you it’s a definite thing. Just...sleep on it, okay? Call me tomorrow...we have a lot to discuss.”

Richie bit his lip so hard it bled, his mouth tasting coppery as he swallowed harshly, “Okay,” he breathed, fight drained out of him as he suddenly realised how tired he was. “Okay, Bevvy.”

Over the phone, Beverly couldn’t help but notice he sounded almost childlike as he said that, much like he had immediately after Eddie died. She felt her heart soften a little, anger ebbing away.

“Take care, Richie,” she said softly, “I really hope this works out for you...”

Richie felt tears sting his eyes for the second time that night. He hung up, and started to walk back alone.


	4. Chapter Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> FLASHBACK: three weeks prior, the Losers Club prepare to leave Derry, and with it, a grief-stricken Richie who refuses to follow.

_[Three weeks earlier, two days after the final battle with It, the gang is checking out of the townhouses, packing up their luggage as they prepare to leave Derry for good. On the tartan couch, Beverly and Bill are talking in hushed voices] _

“ Think he’s gonna go back home?” Beverly asked him quietly, nervously fiddling with a dainty gold bracelet fastened around her wrist.

“Honestly?” Bill said, hands coming to rest on the knees of his jeans, which had seen a lot this week, “I don’t think California is his home anymore.”

They exchanged equally sympathetic glances. The situation was nothing if not extremely unfortunate. Sickeningly so. 

Eddie was _always_ his home— California was only ever a surrogate for him. Richie was reunited with it, finally, only to now come home to an empty house.

It just wasn’t fair.

Bill and Beverly exhaled sharply, silent tears starting to fall from her blue eyes. 

“Think we could have saved him?” Beverly asked softly, “I mean...could we have?”

Bill took one look at her face, the absolute picture of self-reproach. He craned his neck to try and meet her gaze, which was lowered, placing his hand comfortingly over her own, “Hey, hey— Bev. We c-cuh-couldn’t have done anything m-m-more for him,” he said, voice understanding but stern.

She looked blearily around the room, blinking tears away as she sniffled, “I can’t tell if that makes it better or worse.”

“I know,” Bill said, squeezing her hand, “I know.”

“Do you think he’s going to stay in Derry?” she whispered, leaning against his shoulder.

Bill looked at her funnily, the answer clear as day to him, “Wouldn’t you?”

Beverly’s plane ticket back to Chicago felt offensive in her shorts pocket, but she knew that’s not what he meant. The rest needn’t be said.

_ Wouldn’t you if it was the love of your life? _

As if on cue, Richie descended down the stairs, luggage a dead weight in his grip as he gazed blankly at the peeling wallpaper. 

_Eddie would have hated that_, he couldn’t help but think,  _“Do you even know how many germs are on wallpaper, Trashmouth?”_

“H-Here, let me get that,” Bill said, snapping him out of his train of thought as he jumped to his feet to collect the luggage.

“No!” Richie yelled, pulling the suitcase protectively against him. With a twinge of his heart, Bill realised it was Eddie’s.

“I...I've got it...” he said softly, looking miserable.

Bill nodded, stepping out of the way, knowing better than to argue with him right now. He looked like a kicked puppy— downright pitiful. But the Losers respected Richie far too much to ever bestow such a grievance as pity upon him.  Richie wheeled the luggage outside, placing it in the trunk before sitting the driver’s seat of his car, and beginning to cry.

* * *

_ [Two hours after the Losers packed up their luggage, at the airport. Beverly’s flight is about to start boarding, and they’re all exchanging goodbyes. Everyone has a plane ticket in their hand, waiting to leave Derry, everyone except for...] _

“Richie,” Beverly said to Bill as he hugged her, “do you think he’s going to be okay all by himself?”

He pulled back, looking at him standing a few feet away, staring mutely at his shoes.

He sighed, “He’ll be okay, Bev. You know Richie...”

“Not like this we don’t,” she whispered, “this isn’t  _ our _ Richie. I haven’t seen him this upset since he got kicked out of the Aladdin for being too loud and he missed the screening of  _ The Thing_ _._”

“Bev, he  _did_ just lose his b-b-best friend.”

“I  know ,” she said plaintively, “that’s what I mean. We’ve never seen him experience anything close to this, so we can’t  say how he’s going to react.”

Bill knew she was right. They didn’t know what was going to come out of this. This  wasn’t Richie. Everyone in the group had a very specific role— it’s largely the reason why they worked out so well. Richie’s thing had always been his humour, but without Eddie, he seemed to be unable to find humour in anything. To anyone else, they might assume that since most of Richie’s jokes were directed at either Eddie or his mother, the decrease in his humour after Eddie died would be natural.

But the Losers knew better.

Maybe Richie’s thing wasn’t humour, maybe Richie’s thing was always just  _Eddie_. Eddie brought out the best in Richie, so why wouldn’t he have the power to take it away from him too? With this new change, Richie’s body weighing heavier on the world with insurmountable amounts of grief, and that permanent smile on his face gone, the Losers were looking at a stranger.

Richie was a shell of a man, and all they wanted to do was comfort him— but how could you comfort a whisper of a man when he was too fragile to touch?

Bill looked away. For the first time in his life, for the first time since he was appointed the unofficial leader of the Losers club, he didn’t know what to do.

_ Maybe Richie wasn’t the only one losing himself. _

“You’re right,” he said, voice gravelly and defeated, “we don’t know.”

Beverly stared heart-brokenly at him, and then enveloped him in another bone-crushing hug,  “Thanks for everything, Big Bill,” she whispered into his neck.

“I wish I could do_ more_,” he said back tearfully.

After a moment longer, they separated, and the rest of the Loser’s gave her some comfortable space as her gaze trained on Richie.

“Richie?” she said softly.

Richie looked up, looking as if she just derailed a very deep train of thought. 

The thing about grief, is that your thoughts become a sort of railroad— stopping and picking back up at certain times. Sometimes someone will get on the train with you, but most times you’re just alone. 

There are other people on that train, but you pay no mind to them besides the occasional glance, barricaded in your own cabin because nobody could  _possibly_ feel the way you do. The thing about grief is that it becomes a daily commute—passing the world by through a blur of tears and stretching out before you like a carpet. Gradually, the time it takes to get to where you need to be becomes quicker, and you can ride the train through while hardly noticing you were even on it in the first place.

But what you don’t understand while riding it, is that grief is so often like a cul-de-sac. You’ll go around and around on the same path, licking the same wound until you drive yourself mad.

Beverly derailed that train of thought before he could crash.

She opened her arms in offering, and Richie’s face crumpled before he walked forward and leaned heavily into her touch.  Her hair was like a siren, flaming red and seducing his previous inhibitions out of him as it enveloped him in the sweetest feeling.  Richie let his head dip into it a little longer, feeling his heart wail as the touch sent an array of rocks skittering off his chest and into the chasm he so terribly feared.

Richie pulled away.

“Are you sure you’re going to be okay all alone, Richie?” she asked him again.

He couldn’t bring himself to be mad at the question— not when she was looking at him with such love and care in her eyes.

He must have hesitated too long, because she tentatively added, “Me and Ben— we have a guest room, you know. Or Bill, or Mike..." the word 'Stan' ghosted over her lips before she stopped with a look of horrible realisation, "we’d be more than happy to accommodate—“

“I’m fine,” Richie cut in.

Beverly pursed her lips, eyebrows drawn close, a conflicted look on her face.

“Really,” he said, patting her on the shoulder, where a white Ship n’ Shore blouse flowed daintily over her collarbone, “thank you, Bev. But I’ll be fine.”

_I hope he will__,_ Beverly thought,  _God, I really hope so._

“Okay,” she said softly, conceding despite every other instinct that screamed inside of her, “just know the offer always stands, if you ever reconsider.”

Richie left out a breath of relief, feeling a wave of gratitude wash over him. He hugged her once more, briefly, “Thanks, Bevvy.”

He smiled smally at her, and she heard her flight being announced for boarding over the intercom.

She looked at him apologetically, “That’s me.”

Richie nodded, the small pocket of time popping, throwing him back into the familiar arms of his own mind, “Have a safe flight, Bev.”

She started to walk towards her terminal, before pausing, turning on her heel.

“And, Richie?”

“Yeah?” he asked.

“Keep in touch.”

As Beverly clutched her ticket tighter in her hand, making her way towards a new life, Ben in hand, she couldn’t help but pray that Richie would be alright in that house all alone, because she knew all too well about the things that creep out in the dark.


	5. Chapter Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Richie remembers his and Eddie's youth as he struggles to process Beverly's news.

_ Beverly had been right. _

It  was hard to be in a house all alone with all his friends hundreds of miles away and the love of his life practically six feet under. 

_ Except he wasn’t six feet under, because he never got a proper burial. His body was left lying lifeless in the bottom of some shitty-ass sewer to rot. _

Richie keened, clutching the blue aspirator in his hand in a death-grip.  He had always kept an extra one on him as a kid, just in case Eddie ever needed it and ran out of his own. He remembered the exact moment he first got it.

It had been a particularly hot summer— the summer when the Losers first banded together, in fact, and Eddie had already suffered an asthma attack down at the Barrens the day Ben Hanscom came floundering down the river, belly engraved with Henry Bower’s initials.  Bill had carried Eddie in his arms to the pharmacy, which was thankfully only about half a kilometre away, his heaving body gasping for air as he clutched tightly onto Bill’s arm.  Richie had been more terrified in that moment than he’d ever been— eyes trained nervously on Eddie as he waited for the last breath to leave his lips. The moment fortunately, never came, and Bill dumped Eddie onto the ground, against the brick wall outside Keene’s pharmacy as he rushed inside with the rest of the Losers.

_ “ Richie _ _,_” Eddie gasped, holding out an arm, Richie turning on his heel to look at him.

“Yeah, Eds?” he asked, hurrying over to him, worry painted over his face.

“Don’t—“ his eyes rolled back for a minute, “don’t leave.”

Richie’s heart felt like it was being tugged by an anchor at the plea, and he sunk to his knees in front of him, “Never, Eds. I won’t leave you, not ever.”

Had he been able to breathe any more than a few shuddering gasps, Eddie might have rolled his eyes, smacking him on the shoulder and saying, _“Stop being sappy, Trashmouth.”_

But all he did was reach for Richie’s hand and squeeze it in a death grip as he tried to let some air into his lungs.

Looking back, Richie might have first fully realised his feelings for Eddie in that moment—crouched outside Keene’s pharmacy, an incredible burn in his legs, and an even more incredible burning in his heart.  If Richie’s other hand went up to cup Eddie’s cheek at that moment, none was more the wiser, because at that moment, Bill came rushing out of the pharmacy, tossing Richie the white paper bag filled with Eddie’s medicine.As Bill rushed away to go help Stan with Ben, Richie hastily tore open the bag, pulling out Eddie’s inhaler, popping it in his mouth as he pulled the trigger. Eddie gasped in a breath as the familiar battery-acid taste filled his lungs. He had never been so glad to taste that bitter cloud of medicine than he had at that moment.  His death-grip on Richie’s hand relaxed to a gentle squeeze as his chest settled, eyes clearing up and face gaining back some colour as he started to breathe easier, a contented sigh leaving him. His grip on Richie’s hand melted into simply his own fingers locked between Richie’s, and Richie realised at that moment that they were holding hands.

“Feeling better, Eds?” Richie grinned, but his heart was pounding in his chest.

“Yeah,” Eddie said a little breathlessly, looking at their joined hands with an unplaceable expression.

They locked eyes for a moment, and Richie felt his heart making a break for it, crawling out of his chest and into his throat where it pulsed frantically. His cheeks burned bright red, and he knew Eddie surely had to have noticed.  And then Bill came running back over, the rest of the Losers in tow, naturally. They followed Bill blindly like a compass— they would follow him to the ends of the Earth, or right off a cliff.  Eddie especially, who Richie had realized looked up to him as a kind of father figure.

His eyes lit up as he saw Bill approaching, and their hands untangled themselves, dropping back limply to their sides. Richie felt his heart twitch, like the anchor tugging on his heart was allowing gravity to humble it as it sunk slightly.

Richie forced on a smile, tapping into his persona like he always did around the Losers, “So, Haystack,” he said to Ben, “still leaking Hamburger Helper?”

He remembered that moment clear as day— having forgotten it in the twenty something years since he’d left Derry, but had it come crashing back into him like a riptide the moment he saw Eddie again.  His mind may have forgotten, but the heart never does. The heart has a way of being painfully resistant to letting memories slip, Richie has found. An unforgetting heart and an amnesic mind— what a cruel combination. You were left reeling from a wound you couldn’t even place. He supposed it explains why he would always feel drawn to the pharmacy booth at the store, or why he had an inhaler tucked into his pocket despite countless reassurances from the doctor’s office that he didn’t have asthma.  It explains why he still kept it snugly on him at all times in the pocket of his jeans, hand flying to it before a big gig, or whenever he felt nervous.  He remembered that day at Keene’s pharmacy was the day he realised he could never let anything happen to Eddie— he made a promise.

He had stolen Eddie’s inhaler, he recounted. Slipped it into his pocket one day after he’d left it to dry in the sun at the quarry. It was a split second decision, one minute it was on the rocks, and the next it was in his pockets, heart in his throat and a lie on his tongue.  Eddie had noticed rather quickly, and Richie had ragged on him in the way Richie always did.

“You sure you didn’t chuck it into the quarry?” he had grinned, walloping him on the shoulder.

“Yeah, asshole,” Eddie had responded snippily, “I threw my lifeline into this shitty water. Why the fuck would I do that?”

“You tell me, sweets. Maybe you had a moment of rebellion.”

“No, I didn’t!” Eddie bitched, still searching in his pockets for the blue inhaler, as if it would magically turn up.

“You’re right, you wouldn’t _ dare_ rebel.”

“Shut the fuck up, Trashmouth.”

Richie held up his hands in surrender, “Easy, Eds. I’m just a concerned citizen.”

Eddie had rolled his eyes, hands resting on his hips.

“I mean—“ Richie continued, “I have nothing against carrying you over to Keene’s pharmacy bridal-style again, but--“

“That wasn’t  you, dipshit, that was _Bill_ who carried me,” he paused, licking his lips before adding, “you’re not strong enough to carry me.”

Richie had gasped, clutching his chest with his hands, “Eds— you  wound me.”

“Good ,” he responded, frowning.

Richie had smiled a shit-eating grin, and before Eddie could protest what was going to happen, he was being lifted up into Richie’s arms.

“Let me down, asshole!” he had screeched, kicking his legs as his face went red.

Richie had just smiled, putting him down as the rest of the Losers came into view, Eddie’s inhaler a comforting weight in his pocket. 

When Eddie had gotten a new aspirator the next week, Richie tried not to grin too much as he said, “How irresponsible of you, Eddie. Losing your inhaler,” tsk’ing at him.

“Shut up, dickwad,” Eddie had shot back at him, Richie dissolving into laughter as he started to attack him.

The warmth of the memory receded like a tide, leaving Richie shivering, like he was soaking wet in a snowstorm.  He groaned into his hands, leaning into the cool press of the metal button of the aspirator against his cheek. 

It was nights like this alone that the ache in Richie’s heart took a hold of him and refused to let go.

Richie’s grief was like a fire—he could smell smoke pouring in through the vents, feel the suffocating heat clinging to his skin like a straitjacket. His mind seemed to melt inside his head, pouring out of his eyes in the form of ashy tears, his chest constricting like a noose.  The fire alarm sat next to him tauntingly, ultimately within reach, but he couldn’t bring himself to bring his fist up and shatter the glass standing between him and salvation.  Because then the rain would come, and everyone would come rushing in to take him away again, while he could only watch as the flame he found purpose in fizzled out forever. His love for Eddie was like a wildfire, and even after his death, he was still coughing up smoke. His lungs were burned and his body was tainted but he wouldn’t have it any other way. It felt like a brand onto his skin— as sure as Richie had carved his and Eddie’s initials into that bridge all those years ago, Eddie left a mark on Richie that never went away.

And he didn’t  want it to .

Because forgetting means leaving and every mile he gets further away from Derry is not distance he’s putting between himself and It, but distance between him and Eddie. And Richie couldn’t bear to be any further apart from him.

“I really hope it’s true, Eds,” he whispered, “I really do.”

_ God, please let it be true. _

Richie scrubbed his hands over his eyes, blinking away a wave of exhaustion as he pressed the inhaler to his lips softly, reaching over the bed and turning off the light.

That night, he fell asleep with the aspirator still clutched against his chest as he fell into a restless sleep.


	6. Chapter Six

_ [A mere three blocks away, about ten feet underground, Eddie Kaspbrak is just beginning to wake up for the second time in the sewers, the final traces of a sweet dream leaving his mind as he twitched in his sleep.] _

“Wha— Richie?” he murmured, sitting up, hair dishevelled and falling over his face.

His mind still reeled from the pocket of warmth and safety— that dream. He could almost see Richie’s shit-eating grin, his stupid coke-bottle glasses, hear his laugh and playful, “Heya, Eds. Havin' any good chucks lately?”

Eddie groaned as he realised he was still in the sewers, and in a moment of blind impulse, egged on by the image of Richie in his mind, pulled himself to his feet.

“No, Richie,” he said to himself, looking around the small, dank room, “not been having too many good chucks down here.”

He tentatively reached out and brushed his fingers over a section of the damp wall, before remembering where he was and cringed, retracting his hand and wiping it on his pant leg.  He kept them there on his hips, blinking as he stared up at the impossibly high ceiling. It was like the world’s grittiest, God-less cathedral.  He stared at the murky water pooling in the corners of the room, mysterious stains painted over the walls— a damp weight to the air that made his lungs creak in protest.

“God, my mom would be so pissed right now,” he wheezed.

He was starting to wonder if he caught some kind of brain-eating amoeba down here— seeming a little too okay with this whole back from the dead/stuck inside a literal shit-hole deal for his liking.  He shivered, thinking of the doctor’s trip he was going to have to make. For the first time in his life, he might actually get diagnosed with something instead of the doctors just yelling at his mother.  The thought was enough to make Mrs. K turn in her grave. Eddie could practically hear her wailing, _“Eddie-Bear, you can’t leave me! It was those punks you hang around with, wasn’t it? They did this to you, Eddie!”_

Eddie shivered. Yes, the idea of going to the doctor’s office terrified him. That is, if he ever even got out of here.

Motivated by the thought and not too keen on the way his mother’s voice seemed to echo off the walls of the bare room, he started to walk.

The sewers under Derry were dizzyingly large despite how barren they were, as if to allow room for evil to breed, branching off like roots of a tree. Spider-web cracks took up the better portion of the grey cement walls, and Eddie shuddered, remembering It’s true, arachnid form.  He tried not to breathe through his nose— the dank air was cold and filthy, seeming to coat his tongue with some kind of grimy film as he muttered to himself.

_ God, he’d never wanted to shower so badly in his life. _

He stumbled around the various unidentifiable totems strewn around the room like a child’s toys, sticking out awkwardly like stalagmites.  The mere thought of anything jutting out of the ground that could impale him was enough to send an icy shock of horror through him, blooming a sickly-warm wave of nausea through him. 

_He had been impaled, how the  hell was he still alive?_

He tucked his chin to the collar of his shirt, rucking up the hem of it as he felt blindly for his wound.  The wound— as he found out with a pained gasp, was still there. It was a stinging, gaping slash through his pale skin, pebbled at the edges and nasty enough to make a soldier keel.  Heat seemed to pulse like a heartbeat around the area, and as his fingers slipped over his hip, he could feel a jagged cut— what must have been the exit wound, closing up into a raised scar.  He winced, whimpering a little bit at the back of his throat as he slid his shirt back down, the pain seemingly magnified now that he’d seen the damage.

Eddie had never been good with injury— you’d think after spending countless days at hospitals on account of his mother’s frantic pleas, only to be given a clean bill of health, without exception,  every single time  would have made him used to the idea of being hurt.

But it didn’t.

Eddie was beginning to realize that nothing in Derry really worked out the way it should.

If anything, his mother’s paranoid mother-bird parenting had only been a catalyst for the life-long fear he would develop, of being hurt.  He was always waiting for that moment— the moment for her to swoop in and rescue him before the elusive threat could get to him. He never stopped waiting.  But now she was gone, and as much as Eddie resented his mother, there was no denying that he had become somewhat dependent on the shelter she’d built for him. 

Bullshit or not, it had been all Eddie had known for most of his life, and it seemed to bleed through his past, into his present like a spilled bottle of ink, tainting what lay before him.  Without his mother, who was going to swoop him up and save him when the hawk came for his throat? Would he just lay there cowering, wishing for anyone to be the hero but him. 

_He wasn’t the hero type__,_ he firmly decided,  _heroes don’t get scared and heroes don’t get soft, and heroes most certainly don’t cry for their mothers._

_ “I’m a lover, not a fighter _ _,”_ Richie’s voice crooned in his mind.

Despite everything, Eddie found himself laughing fondly at the memory. 

Richie had discovered classic rock that summer, and was particularly fond of The Kinks, because of  course he was.

“You only like them because of their name!” Eddie had protested, aggressively picking at a strand of grass in the Barrens.

“How do  _you_ know what kinks are?” Richie had asked, before grinning, “You into some freaky shit, Eds? Like to be spanked and called a  _bad boy?”_

Eddie was aghast at this, turning bright red as he screeched, _“No!”_

“Oh,” Richie said, the same shit-eating grin plastered over his face, “I get it— you like to be called a  _good boy__,_ then.”

“No!” he yelled, nose scrunched up scrutinizingly, “I don’t like to be called _anything!_”

“Eds—“

“And I  _especially_ don’t like being called Eds.”

“Aw, Eds,” Richie had cooed, slinging an arm around his shoulder jovially, “it’s all a part of life on this big, dumb Earth— life flows on, and people _just get kinkier.”_

_ “Richie!” _

“That’s right, Eddie, say my name!” he said goofily, tilting his head back in laughter as Eddie tried to scramble away from him, face twisted up in horror.

“That is  _so_ disgusting, Trashmouth.”

“Awe come on, you love it, Eds,” he had grinned back at him.

Eddie had roughly jostled him with a push to the chest, starting to walk away.

“Hey, Eds! Wait up!” he heard Richie call.

And despite everything, he found himself laughing fondly that day, begrudgingly accepting Richie’s arm slung around his back as they navigated through the fields.

He bit his lip at the memory, a small smile spreading across his face. 

He found the door and gripped the doorknob, taking one last look at what was supposed to be his grave, before stepping out into the dark, empty waters of the sewers.


	7. Chapter Seven

Over a thousand miles away, Beverly was restless. 

She paced the small guest room of her and Ben’s flat, the wood boards creaking occasionally as the ball of her foot made its rounds around the space.  She glanced over at the wicker-framed bed, wishing offhandedly that she’d been more firm on Richie staying with them. 

Every time she closed her eyes, she saw Richie ending up like Stan.

She didn’t see it the way she had with Stan all those years ago— that terrible sense of  knowingthat there was nothing she could do to stop it. That there were forces at play bigger than all of them. This had nothing to do with the power of It, and perhaps that was the most terrifying thing of all. That perhaps there existed monsters that couldn’t be vanquished, not under these circumstances, not right now. Circumstances where bravery does not defeat life's greatest adversaries, but put a sickening end to them worse than the tribulations of living with them

It was this uneasy feeling of trepidation, like she was the only one brave enough to see the forest for the trees. Everyone acted like they were out of the woods; in the clear, like it had all worked out.

But it _hadn’t._

Plagued by nightmares, Beverly struggled to reconcile her own intuition and the denial grief brings into something sensical and concrete. It was in that struggle that she found herself floundering in that darkness- drowning, screaming. And suddenly, it felt like she'd never even escaped the sewers at all.

_ What if Eddie was really dead? What if she just gave Richie false hope? _

The thought made her stomach churn, sending a fuzzy feeling through her head as she short-circuited.

She let out a cry of frustration.

And then she was being pulled into Ben’s arms.

He held her close, tucking his chin snugly atop her head, bracketing her in with his big arms. She relaxed by a fraction of a difference.

“You’re thinking about Richie, aren’t you?”

She sighed feather-light, a whisper in the wind— almost lost to her ears in the thickening silence, and her own deafening thoughts. She leaned into his touch with the ease of someone who wasn’t afraid of falling.

Ben held her with the ease of a man who was prepared to catch her, every single time.  He spent years loving her— and not once had it dwindled. Not once will it ever; he loved her endlessly and continually, every single day of his life, as he would until his very last.  He made sure to voice this to Beverly, who nuzzled in closer to his neck, his stubble scratching softly against her face. 

“I know, Ben,” she said tenderly, “but it doesn’t feel fair. Why should  we get to be happy when—“

“When he doesn’t?” Ben finished.

“And  _Stan_,” she whispered, hot tears starting to swim in her eyes.

She thought of Stan— the gentle Jewish boy with a profound love for things as ordinary as birds. Stan who could identify a night-tangle from a finch with his eyes closed. Stan who carried that battered paperback bird book with him everywhere.  Stan with his smile as bright as sunshine— sparkling hazel eyes that crinkled up at the corners when he laughed— the best sound in the world, his curly hair like a halo around his face.  Stan who so valued simple things, and even at a young age saw beauty in places most people neglected to look their whole lives. Stan who loved his wife, more faithful than anyone could imagine. Stanley who liked to do puzzles in his spare time and enjoy a glass of red wine in the evening.

Stanley who gave and gave and only asked for one thing in return— for nothing to threaten, for nothing to  _offend_ his natural order of life.

And they couldn’t even give him that.

Beverly took a shuddering breath, and then she started to cry.

“It’s not  _fair__,_ Ben.”

“I know,” he whispered into her hair, cradling the back of her head as he held her close. He fought back tears of his own as he remembered his friends. He’d loved them all.  He let her cry into his shoulder for a few minutes, until the sobs dispersed into sniffles, and she was leaning heavily against him, head lolling to the side.

He pressed a gentle kiss to her forehead.

“You can figure it all out tomorrow, but for now, come back to bed,” he murmured.

She sniffled, wiping away her tears with the back of her hand, nodding, “Okay,” she whispered, and let herself be lead back to their room, falling into a dreamless sleep.

* * *

_ [Six hours later, at the Hanscom residence. Beverly has just awoken from a disturbed sleep, standing in the kitchen, still in her pyjamas. She held the telephone loosely in her hand, debating whether or not to call Richie. She was considering retreating back to bed when...] _

Ben walked into the room, dark brown hair falling over his forehead in a single stray curl, stomach taut and impressive beneath his loose grey t-shirt. He had also just woken up, and looked soft in the morning light.  He ambled over behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist and pressing a single kiss at the back of her neck.

“Hey,” he said, voice still gravelly with sleep.

“Hey,” she said back softly, looking conflictedly at the phone in her hand.

“Richie?” he asked, giving her some space, clamping a comforting hand on her shoulder.

“Ben, what if I’m wrong?” she whispered, a strand of auburn hair falling over her cheek. She pushed it away, tucking it behind her ear, “I can hardly tell what is a vision and what’s just a  dream anymore," she trailed off, whispering,  “I can’t even remember what I’m starting to forget.”

Ben tilted her chin up, looking at her sternly, “Hey. You can’t do any more than what you’re already doing. Nobody would blame you...”

The sentence had words left unsaid, but Beverly knew what he meant.

_ Nobody would blame you if Eddie was actually dead and you rebuilt that fragile cathedral of hope, only to crush it in front of them once again, the way the Neibolt house encroached on Eddie's limp body that day in the sewers. _

Beverly wasn’t so sure.

“What if Eddie was actually gone...for _good?_” she said, so softly it was almost lost to Ben’s ears.

“For Richie’s sake,” Ben said, “let’s hope we never find out.

He placed the phone firmly back into her hand. Beverly took a shuddering breath, and started to dial Richie’s number.


	8. Chapter Eight

_ [ Back in Derry, Maine, Richie Tozier sat on the porch of his old childhood home, which he had inherited from his parents a few years back. His phone sat pointedly beside him, and his eyes kept flicking to it, expectantly, nervously. Richie...] _

—Blew a cloud of smoke towards the early morning sky, the sun just barely having risen from the horizon. He coughed, making a face as the ashy taste filled his relaxing lungs.

He’d hadn’t quite gotten used to the taste again.

It had been a good twenty seven years since he’d last smoked, and even then he’d only done in occasionally, whenever he managed to swipe a pack of Camel’s from his dad or bum some off of Beverly, who took them like a champ.

He had never really liked the taste— it always left his tongue with some kind of sandpapery film, and the smell always clung to him like a second skin.  Eddie had always hated it, turning his nose up in disgust whenever Richie would strike a match, lighting the end of it as grey smoke filtered through the air.

“Do you even  _know_ how many diseases you can get from doing that?” he would ask.

One particular time, Richie smiled around the cigarette, puffing a small cloud of smoke from the end, as he said, “Do  _you_ even know how many diseases I could get from doing your mom? I’m a risk-taker, Eds, I like to play the odds.”

Eddie, clearly unsatisfied by this answer sent him a death glare and said, “Yeah, well. Your odds aren’t looking too good right now, Trashmouth.”

“What do you m—“ he only managed to get out before he was being tackled into the grass by a very miffed Eddie Kaspbrak.

“Woah,” Richie said, looking up at him from underneath those stupid Coke-bottle glasses. His mouth twitched up into a grin, “hiya, Eds.”

His hand naturally slipped up to smack a hand over Eddie’s hip, resting it there casually.

Eddie was red-faced and livid as ever as he said, “Get your hand  off me! And  don’t call me E—“

Richie had interrupted him by blowing a cloud of smoke into his agape mouth, his cigarette long since lost in the grass following the tackle.  Eddie hauled himself off of Richie, keeling in the grass as he coughed violently, spit dribbling from his lips, squawking out various expletives as Richie cackled on the ground.

“I have  asthma, you dickwad! You could have killed me— is that what you want?”

“Well,” Richie had said, “yeah. Because then  _I _could be Mrs. K’s  _baby boy.”_

Eddie had hacked once more saying, “Beep, beep, Richie,” the cigarette still smouldering in the grass.

Richie looked at the smoking end of his cigarette now, thin wisps of grey filtering lazily through the air as he neglected to put it to good use.

_ Eddie would have hated that _ _,_ he thought offhandedly,

And he thought, maybe the reason why he picked up smoking again was _ because_ Eddie would have hated it. 

As a kid, he only ever really did it once out of curiosity. Everything following that was done just to get a rise out of Eddie— because how dearly Richie loved hearing him bitch at him. Tell him how sick he was making himself. It was some of the only times Eddie ever expressed an outward sense of  care for him. It was like spending all that time down at the quarry nowadays— he felt that, in an offhand way, by doing the things Eddie would hate most, it would bring him back, because it was just the way things _worked; _Richie did stupid things and Eddie swooped in to stop him. Time after time, again and again. It had become one of the only constants in Richie's life, and he soon found himself governed to that pattern- orbiting it like a sun, licking over the same gag until it was nonsensical, if only to get a fond look in return and just a piece of that incredible _sunshine._

He’d always joked that him smoking a cigarette would be enough to make Eddie turn in his grave, but it wasn’t funny anymore.

_Some fucking luck it would be if that were true, wouldn’t it, Eds?_ he thought.

“Wouldn’t it, Eds?” he murmured, taking a sip of his coffee as he peered over the horizon, where the sleepy town was just starting to stir.

_ Some luck that would be. What a good chuck, huh, Eds?  _

Suddenly, his phone vibrated on the chair beside him, nearly falling off the arm. Richie caught it before it shattered against the wooden deck,tentatively looking at the number as his heart came to a dead stop in his chest.

_ [Incoming call from Chicago, Illinois.] _

His hand shook as he lifted the phone to his ear, nearly dropping it for a second time as he took a deep breath, “Hello?”

“Richie,” Beverly said, “it’s Bev.”

_ I know _ _,_ Richie meant to say.

“Eddie,” he said instead.

“Eddie...” Beverly trailed off, “look, Richie. It’s not a for sure thing, but...”

Richie’s fingers twitched beside him, the butt of his cigarette burning the pad of his fingers. He hardly noticed, fighting the urge to tell Beverly to speak faster, dammit.

Just as he was about to say something, she said quietly, “You remember my dreams?”

“Dreams,” he parroted, before the memory crashed into him like a twenty foot wave, “your dreams! Yes, I remember.”

His foot was tapping nervously now— not unusual for Richie at the best of times, but the tic seemed to worsen since Eddie’s death. Like he couldn’t stop moving or the grief would consume him whole.

“It’s like...these visions,” she said with the hesitance of someone trying to mentally string together their own thoughts as they speak.

“Vision? Like the kind of visions those bullshit psychics give out at carnivals for a dime?”

Beverly huffed into the receiver, and Richie cringed, sensing her scalding frustration thousands of miles away, as bright red and fiery as her hair.

“...Sorry,” he muttered.

Beverly, like the saint she is, continued on, “No, not like those. These are real— at least it seems like they are.”

Richie huffed, taking a long drag of his cigarette, closing his eyes and tilting his head up to the sky. It seemed like every step they were going forward in this discussion, they promptly went two steps back.

It was utterly redundant.

Still, he remained patient. He loved Beverly, and even within that outer space littered with grief and broken memories in which he was floating— orbiting Eddie and his desperate longing for him, a deep understanding of Beverly’s own grief existed, and it was in that understanding that he found himself able to reconcile his own agony with the deep love he had for everyone else that had been in blast radius the day the bomb dropped and Eddie died. 

_Losers forever_, the words echoed in his ears, just as powerful as they had been twenty seven years ago.

Beverly started to speak,  “You know when we left Derry for the first time— the first time we defeated It, and all of us slowly started to forget about each other?”

Richie nodded. He remembered all too well— that sense of forgetting, but not remembering what he was forgetting in the first place. Like it was on the tip of his tongue.

He must have unconsciously voiced this to Beverly, because then she was exclaiming, “Exactly!” in his ear.

Richie recoiled.

“It’s like...like I’m remembering,” she said, “remembering something I can’t recall happening...I’m sorry, Richie, I know it sounds crazy—“

“No, no,” he said, “it’s makes sense.”

And it  did — every one of the Losers was acquaintanced with that odd feeling, and the familiarity sent a rumble of hope through Richie’s body. 

Because that feeling was directly linked to Derry, and whatever lived in Derry didn’t necessarily abide by the common laws of the universe. 

Richie’s fingers tapped a beat against the back of his phone.

“The same way I was able to tell Stan was dead...” Beverly started, “I...I’m able to...to tell—“

“That Eddie’s alive,” Richie finished, voice breathy and soft- like someone who is just beginning to rouse from a warm sleep, the final dredges of morning poring over their skin.

“Richie,” she sighed, “we don’t know.”

“Well, what do you want me to say, Beverly?” he said, voice rising dangerously as he rose from his seat, the noise startling a curious glance out of a little boy riding past on his tricycle, “That he’s  _dead?”_ he hissed.

“No!” she cried, “I’m not asking you to say  _ anything_ _._ All I’m asking is that you listen and try to_ work with me_...for Eddie’s sake.”

It was a poor choice of phrasing on Beverly’s part, brought on by her own growing trepidation and Richie’s sheer anguish bleeding through the phone that had a way of putting everyone at a loss for words.

“Oh, for  _Eddie’s __sake?”_ Richie laughed mirthlessly, voice turning hysterical, “_Now _you’re deciding what’s  best for Eddie? You guys left him to die in the sewers!”

“There was no other  choice, Richie!” she cried shrilly, voice thick with emotion, and guilt. So much _guilt._

His voice raised to the breaking point, letting out a heaving dry sob, sounding a lot like Eddie when his inhaler ran out,  “You should have let me stay there with him.”

The true meaning behind his words was left unsaid, but Beverly understood what he was saying anyways:

_ You should have left me to die there with him. _

“At least this way you have a  _ chance_ ,” she pleaded, Richie pinching the bridge of his nose in frustration.

The true meaning behind her words was left unsaid, but Richie understood what she was saying anyways:

_ You have a chance, Richie. A chance to see Eddie again. Don’t you want that? _

He took a deep breath, wiping away hot tears before saying, “Okay, then are you guys all coming back to Derry?”

Beverly hesitated, and in that pause, Richie felt his heart cave in like the Neibolt house had on Eddie— that anchor attached to his heart sinking further and further from the sun, out of the blue and into the black. He shivered. Life was callous and so goddamn _cold_ without Eddie in it.

“Richie, I’ve already decided that I’m going to come down. I have to— I’m the one with the vision. I’m the one who got you into this.”

Richie waited with bated breath as she slowly continued.

“Ben has already agreed to come with me, but Richie...I don’t know about the other Losers. Derry isn’t exactly a happy place for any of us, and given what we just went through, I don’t know if they’ll want to come back.”

_A happy place?_ Richie thought incredulously,  _Eddie doesn’t have a fucking choice. He’s in the town he hates in a dirty sewer that he would hate so much it makes me want to cry, because I know that he would if he knew. If he knew..._

“Oh, well that’s _nice,”_ Richie said, “what ever happened to_ ‘Losers stick together’?_ We can fuck right back to Derry when_ Bill_ says so, but when  Eddie _dies_, who gives a shit, right?”

“Richie—“

“Real fucking  _nice_,” he yelled, slamming his hand against the railing. 

He hardly noticed the dull ache it sent shooting down his arm— it was nothing compared to the raging inferno inside his heart.

“I’m flying out tomorrow night,” Beverly said quietly, “I’ll do my best to try to convince the others. Richie, that’s the best I can do...”

His breath hitched, and a warbling sob choked up from his throat, lip trembling much like it had for Bill the first time they’d gone into the Neibolt house looking for Georgie, a speech of bravery on his tongue, one that would reunite them and _empower_ them, except Richie had never in his life been so lost for words.

“Every second we’re not all together again is another second he’s down there  alone ,” he said shakily, with more conviction in his voice than ever before.

“Richie—“ she said softly.

Richie snubbed out his cigarette on the white railing of his porch, grabbing his jacket, “I’m going to go find Eddie—  _alone.”_

“Richie!” she protested, but he had already hung up, walking towards the sewers with more determination than he’d ever had in his life.

With or without the rest of the Losers, he was going to bring Eddie _home._


	9. Chapter Nine

The pathways branching off from the single-cell room where Pennywise took it’s victims to die, and later be consumed were dizzying and nonsensical— like the frantic scrawls of a schizophrenic.

Eddie was relieved to find that just as it had that fatefully summer of 1989, that internal compass within him had once again begun to tick.

It had always been one of his greater virtues— likely brought on by all that time he’d spent locked in his house with more than enough idle time to kill, when he had one day discovered a pocket compass nestled neatly in his father’s work desk.  He had fiddled with it for days— learning true North and all the ins and outs of the mechanisms, fascinated by the spinning dial and rusted bronze chain that hung from the top of it.

In the few days that Eddie had it— he loved it dearly. He hardly had anything relating to his father but sob-stories recounted by his mother after she’s had one too many glasses of wine, or when an anniversary would pass.

To Eddie, his father was nothing but the sum of the terribly tragic things his name had been raked through over the years. 

But that compass? It was the first moment Eddie really stopped to consider his father as a solidified person he could touch and love and miss, rather than just another tool of guilt-tripping abused by his mother. He was fascinated by the way tears would brim behind his eyes, crying for a man he never got that chance to know, but loved all the same. 

Of course, all all good things do, this came to a devastatingly quick end. Upon discovering him with it one day, Mrs. Kaspbrak had promptly whisked it away, yelling something incoherent at Eddie before bursting out into bubbling tears.  Eddie remembered crying too, feeling as though he’d just lost the last remaining chance to truly connect with his father. From then on, Mr. Kaspbrak was nothing but a ghost in Eddie’s eyes- cold and distant as she floated in and out of his life, her empty eyes haunting him as she asked, '_don't you trust me, Eddie? Don't you know I only know what's best for you?'_

Richie had been furious when he found out about that compass,  Eddie remembered faintly.

The compass or not, that internal sense of direction remained within Eddie, and if he believed in beautiful divine things such as God, he might have called it a miracle, a gift. B ut God was a spiteful, hateful man to Eddie. His mother only brought Him up when Eddie did something she disapproved of.

‘ _ Don’t hang around that Tozier boy, Eddie. He has a foul mouth, and cussing makes you go to Hell!’ _

_ ‘Don’t hang around that Jew, Eddie. God hates Jews. You don’t want God to hate you, do you, Eddie?’ _

_‘ Don’t hang around that Marsh girl, do you know what she does to boys, Eddie? Premarital sex is a sin!’_

_‘ Don’t hang around that negro— no son of mine will be seen with people like them!’_

_ ‘Don’t hang around that fat boy! Gluttony is a sin, Eddie!” _

_ You may not fear the extent of my punishment, Eddie, but you would beg to abide my rules if you knew how God would feel about the things you do. _

A favourite of hers once Eddie began approaching that awkward hill of pubescence was, _ ‘don’t go running around with girls, Eddie!’ _

On one occasion, Eddie had just stared at her blankly and responded, “I don’t  want to run around with girls.”

Clearly, that wasn’t the answer Sonia was looking for, because a kind of horrified, twisted expression passed over her face that Eddie couldn’t understand even to this day.

He’d been locked up in the house for a week after that.

It wasn’t until Sonia outright insulted Richie that Eddie finally snapped, his rebellion taking the form of him storming out of the house, and spending the day at the quarry with the Trashmouth in question.  Mrs. Kaspbrak had been beyond herself when he finally returned— defiantly covered with dirt and grime, a lingering smile on his face. Eddie has just kissed her on the cheek, and went to take a shower.

Looking back, that was probably the first time he ever stood up to his mother, soon followed by the ‘gazebo’ incident that would shape his life.

Eddie may have spent his whole life getting told what to do, but as he found out, he was pretty damn good at figuring things out for himself when he was given the opportunity to.

Eddie smiled, and waded through the murky water.

It was nearly up to his waist, soaking uncomfortably through his pants, and he dimly remarked that his balls felt like they might freeze off.

_Castrated by the sewers__,_ he thought hysterically, laughter bubbling up in his throat at the absurdity of it all.

“I’m honestly just surprised  _you_ didn’t castrate me first,” he said, seemingly to no one in particular. But he knew he was speaking to his mother, in his own way. Even though there was no sight of her pink, plump face in this desolate sewage system. Even though she was five years expired.

“Oh, you would  hate this,” he snorted, “your precious_ Eddie-Bear_— balls as hard as rocks against his legs as he wades through shitty water. What a life, eh, Ma?”

Mrs. K, understandably, did not respond. Eddie, quite happy with this outcome, trudged along.

There was hardly any noise in the sewers, besides the distinctive wet dripping sounds as raw sewage dripped grossly from the circular frames of the various tunnels. Eddie stepped into one of them without thinking, letting his intuition guide him as he looked around.

_ Yeah, there really wasn’t much here at all. _

It wasn’t empty in the way the Barrens were— with heavy forestry and rough grasses that were nearly as tall as you and cut like a bitch across your knees. Barren in the sense that it seemed to be devoid of people, of rules, of _governing_\- besides the steady, true orders of Bill, that is.  No, it was just utterly dismal— like no light or sound could escape it. Like one big, wet black hole.

‘Oh, so like your mom’s vagina, Eddie?’ he heard young Richie’s voice say in his ears.

“Shut up, Trashmouth,” he heard himself saying, with no real bite behind his words. His mouth twitched up into a small smile as he navigated through the darkness.

He wondered what Richie was doing now.


	10. Chapter Ten

Richie cringed as his foot sunk into the cold water of the canal, soaking through his white socks and the cotton outside of his shoes, plastering his toes together in one chilly stump. His hands clenched instinctively, and he grit his teeth as he ignored every instinct he had to simply step out of the water and go back home, where he could mope, maybe smoke another cigarette and halfheartedly watch a rerun of  Golden Girls.

But then he thought of Eddie— probably scared shitless as he woke up alone. He thought of him endlessly roaming the dark, decrepit tunnels of the sewers until he collapsed for good this time, and the idea was enough to make his heart lurch, and his foot take another step forward.

_Just another step, Rich, he told himself,  another step and then one more. Just keep going. _

He fell into a kind of monotonous pattern of slowly hobbling towards the big, cut-out sewer entrance, and didn’t focus on anything else but putting one foot after the other until he was standing within the circular opening.

It was at that point that he turned around, taking one last look at the blue sky above him, for what could very well be the last time.

_Was it worth it? _he thought to himself,  _was it worth it to risk losing everything in pursuit of something so unfathomable even that last dwindling spark of wonder and belief seemed to extinguish under the crushing weight of it all?_

And then he thought of Eddie— Eddie with his stupid short shorts that drove him insane and his dumb inhaler that he honked on like it wasn’t actually just water laced with camphor. Eddie with his small body and delicate face that was deceivingly fragile— when he was perhaps the strongest of them all.

Eddie with his stupid ‘lover’ cast and wild eyes. His constant bitching and the way he talked a mile a minute when you really let him. The only person who could out-talk even Richie.

The way his nose would scrunch up when he was disgusted, which was often, most typically at Richie himself. The way he made Richie laugh like nobody else, even if it was mostly at his expense.

He thought of the boy with glittering eyes and a fast mouth that would make his mother ashamed, the boy who was endlessly devoted to his friends, often sacrificing his own wants and needs for their sake.

He thought of the boy who made it so  hard to leave, time and time again.

The boy who grew into himself eventually, although he was still endearingly vertically challenged. The boy who literally chose the most boring job in the world and married a whale of a woman that looked so much like his own mother it was both hilarious and  so Eddie.

The boy who, even after twenty-seven long years, still hated being called ‘Eds.’ The boy who, even after all this time, remained Richie’s first and only love.

“Nothing could ever not be worth it for you, Eds,” he whispered to himself, “not a single thing.”

And with that, he stepped into the dark, rank mouth of the sewers, and this time, he didn't look back.

* * *

_ [Roughly forty minutes later, deep within the winding tunnels that run under Derry, Richie Tozier is beginning to approach the middle half of the sewers. Unbeknownst to Richie, Eddie is mere miles away, and has just walked through the entrance to a tunnel going the opposite way.] _

Richie was cold, miserable, and fiercely determined.

His hair hung limply over his forehead, slick with condensation and the toll it took on his uncoordinated body to trudge through miles of water against the current. The dim lighting didn’t do much to settle his nerves, setting a slow, nervous pace as his heart threatened to beat out of his chest.  He waded through the disgusting waters, noting the various objects strewn along the ground like capsized ships, spilling out onto the slick, desolate land in one disheartening, premature end.

There was an alarming abundance of various items of clothing— all slumped together in disgusting, sticky piles, fabric over-stretched and unnatural in shape as they floated along.

A rusted pair of roller-skates. A stray, cracked doll-head straight out of a horror movie. A dead flashlight rolling along the concrete floor. Richie took inventory of each token that drifted past him, like if he could identify it, the suffocating unknown wouldn’t feel so horrifically imposing.

He even saw a lone pair of lace panties bob through the water, a similar bra in tow. Before, Richie might have laughed, said something like:

_ Got a hot date tonight, Pennywise? _

—or something of equally as dumb variety, but he couldn’t seem to find it in him today. There was no longer anything funny about _It._

He hated It with his whole heart, because It was the one who took Eddie away.

He just looked at the litter miserably, sick and tired of wading through pure filth. The sewage drenched through his pant legs and seeping cooly over his skin was growing itchy and raw— the urge to scratch it almost unbearable.  Sweat plastered his shirt to his sore back, muscles protesting as his nerve endings singed and burned beneath his pulsing skin, animated by his palpitating heart with each step he took.

He came across a porthole opening latticed with iron rods, leaving only three-inch-by-three-inch openings between the grates.

Beneath the sour, ever-present smell of the sewers, there lay a strong scent of gasoline, Richie noted with a frown. He looked down at his feet, looking through the still water, making out a small silver lighter laying at the bottom.

A chill ran down his spine— as cold as death’s touch. As unforgiving as a brutal winter’s wind. The kind of frigidness that soaks through your bones and into the very core of your essence.

Richie reached into the murky water, and felt a hand brush against his own.

He screamed, recoiling. The action flinging him backwards into the water as he scrambled against the lead-like weight rippling through the sewer banks and over his legs.

He landed with a sickening splash, the water not nearly deep enough to drown him, but deep enough to soak his jeans entirely along the better half of his shirt.

His hands gripped through the slimy water like vises, wound uncomfortably tight as his nails raked through the concrete, a scream ripping through his lungs.  The waxy hand drifted across the grey water in a deliberate, lazy manner, blue-green veins spidering across the white-splattered knuckles.

Attached to the hand was perhaps a sight even worse.

He followed the hand to the forearm to the junction between the shoulder and neck and was met with the grinning, sleazy face of Patrick Hockstetter— or what was left of it, anyway.  His pale face was waxy and dull, black eyes staring up at Richie with horrifying conviction. Like he was fully confident he could kill Richie, even from beyond the dead.

Richie felt he could too.

That seemingly permanent sneer he’d had in his living days remained etched onto his face, small slashes of red at the corners of his lips, where the skin was raw and flaking. His teeth gleamed muddily, winking in the dim light. His stringy brown hair was plastered across his forehead, which was covered in horrible boils that trailed down the side of his cheek and onto his chin, where a gaping, pulsing wound sat sorely embedded into the skin.

He could practically hear Patrick’s taunting voice breathe hotly over his ear.

_ Where you goin— _

“— Fag,” he remembered him drawling, black eyes empty and endless as a cruel smile ripped through his face.

He had been flicking a lighter on and off in his hand— a compulsive gesture meant to exhaust pent-up, uncontrollable energy Richie could empathise with.

Him and Patrick were both live-wires in a human disguise, only, while Richie’s warmed for Eddie alone, he seemed to get burned by Patrick’s every single time. 

“Oh, fuck off, Hockstetter. Go blow your dad.”

Patrick looked gleeful at this— and that alone had been the moment that Richie realised there was something very wrong with Patrick.

As he slunk towards him, Richie found himself, not for the first time in his life, regretting his words.

“You think you’re real funny, huh, Tozier?” he had rasped, that nasty grin leering down at him like a comet on a crash-course to Earth.

He had shoved Richie roughly across the chest, knocking him flat into the grass, looming over him like the terrible, snarling figure of Paul Bunyan.  Dirt had caked itself onto Richie’s elbows, ass pressed into the overgrown field as a dull ache radiated across his lower back.  He looked up through his smudged glasses, seeing Patrick Hockstetter’s lanky body heaving as he grinned down at him, all soulless eyes and devil’s teeth.

His nipples were hard beneath his yellow shirt— faded Tom Cat graphic leering down at him, tongue rolled out like a carpet. Patrick’s mouth followed suit, licking his lips as he leaned down close to Richie, hot breath fanning over his face.

“You and I aren’t so different you know,” he drawled, flicking the lighter on and off, uncapping and recapping it manically. 

_ Flick. Off. Flick. Off. _

Richie watched the silver tip erupt into tiny blue-white flames, paralysed in the sight of that looming threat, and the deranged man grinning down at him. He could practically feel the heat of the lighter on his cheek.  Patrick’s grip was tight as he clamped a hand over Richie’s shoulder, pressing him crushingly hard into the dirt, rucking up the hem of his shirt.

A terrible scream lodged its way through Richie’s throat, not quite meeting the air as it sunk onto his chest like lead. In that moment, all Richie had been able to think was: 

_ Oh my God, he’s really gonna do it. He’s really gonna do it and I’m gonna end up with my dead body ditched in the quarry, just another one of the nameless, faceless dead fags of Derry. _

The thought alone, mixed with the feeling of the smouldering heat pressing into his pale skin was enough to rip a scream from his throat. 

“That’s right.  _Scream_, Tozier,” he laughed, manhandling him as he scorched a path of embers along his right hipbone, “scream for your little _ boyfriend .”_

“He’s not my—“ Richie gasped in pain, eyes fluttering shut, “he’s not my boyfriend, you greasy rat-faced _bastard_. Let me _go!”_

He kicked Patrick, who didn’t even so much as flinch, simply drawing the lighter away for a moment, letting the flame putter out. He leered down at him, wearing a grin that was the picture of self-satisfied.

“We all know you carved his name into the Kissing Bridge, Richie,” he said lowly, condescendingly, ogling him.

Richie felt a twist of hotness clench in his stomach, spreading through his bloodstream like a poison as he suddenly felt very faint and very afraid. His cheeks flushed an angry red, but Richie was nothing more than _ashamed._

“You know about that?” he asked shakily, hot tears threatening to spill out of his eyes at the blinding white shot of pain that radiated around the burn wound.

“Not until now I didn’t,” he replied nonchalantly, and Richie felt his heart sink further into that oppressive darkness he knew all too well.

Patrick shrugged, “Figured as such, seeing as that’s where all the  _fags_ go.”

Under any other circumstance, Richie would have rolled his eyes, putting on his best shit-eating grin before saying something like, _‘_ _ and how would you know that, Hockstetter? Got something to tell us?’ _

But he felt cotton-mouthed and helpless, and only managed a low whimper as his burn continued to wail, sending a force-field of heat inching its way up his body.

“You know,” Patrick said, breath practically in Richie’s own mouth as he leaned in, “they say guilty men can’t lie.”

He flicked the lighter back on, the flame casting a sickening orange glow to his face, “I we just found out that’s true.”

Patrick’s pants were tighter now, head further away as he seared a path across Richie’s hipbone, branding him with some kind of crude symbol, no doubt. There was some kind of sick sparkle in his eyes, and it was at that moment that Richie realised one of his life's greatest truths, which was that perhaps the worst monsters of all were human themselves.

Richie had never felt more ashamed.

When Patrick had pulled away, shooting him one last grin before shoving his closed lighter back into his crowded pockets, leaving Richie alone and injured in the grass, he finally got a good look at what had been burned into his skin.

There, in nasty, crude childlike scrawls of red, was an inverted triangle— raw and raised. He had been branded. Marked. Violated.

Richie clutched the sobbing wound and curled up and cried that day. He cried for a long time, until his tears ran out, and then he cried some more. Desperate, heaving sobs that extended the amount of any tears your body could provide, until his throat and eyes felt as raw as the skin on his torso.

He had never been so humiliated.

As Richie came out of the horrid memory— as fresh and tender as it had been that summer day, he found himself trembling violently, a sympathetic surge of heat shooting through his stomach, where the small scar still remained.

Richie curled his arms around himself in that dark sewer water, and then he began to cry.


	11. Chapter Eleven

_ [Back in Chicago, Illinois, Beverly Marsh is frantically packing her luggage. Not frantic in manner, no, her movements are rather slow and languid, weighed down by the stress of it all—but her mind is a racing, hurried vessel. She holds a lighter in one hand, and a cigarette in the other.] _

“Ah, ah, ah,” Ben tsked, striding into the room, “you quit, remember?”

His voice was light, but held a certain kind of firmness to it that was surprisingly persuasive. Ben had a way of making do with simple words- a way of making people _listen. _

Beverly sighed, the exhale filtered with grey-blue smoke, and she felt her shoulder relax slightly. She  had stopped smoking, just around the time she returned to Derry, and  certainly by the time her and Ben moved in together.

“I know,” she sighed, “old habits die hard, I guess.”

Ben’s eyes followed to his own hand, where a box of Twinkies was being clutched between his fingers. He blushed, as if he'd been caught in the act, “Yeah. I guess so, huh?”

Beverly let out a quiet breath of a laugh, eyes falling fondly upon her boyfriend. He plucked the cigarette from her fingers, bringing it to his mouth and taking a deep inhale.

He coughed, cringing as he shook his head, stubbing it out on the counter beside him, “I could never handle these as a kid.”

“Guess some things never change,” she said, folding her hands in her lap, glancing at the open suitcase at her feet.

“Yeah,” he said, sounding equally as disheartened, but thoughtful as well, “I guess so.”

He sat down next to her, the bed creaking beneath their combined weights, slinging an arm around her shoulder, “Are you sure you want to do this, Bev?”

“Want to?” she asked, trailing off. She had a point, but felt as though it was lost to the winds as her own internal conflict stormed loudly in her mind, in her gut, where her stomach was churning and twisting in tight sailors knots.

_Did _ she want to?

“No,” she said slowly, “it’s not a want. It’s a need.”

Love has nothing to do with greed, and neither does justice. It’s a need to be fulfilled and nurtured as it tentatively flowers and blooms. Love is not selfish— it is the upmost selfless act a human can give; to give yourself unconditionally to another human being—to hand them your life and say,_ 'Use it as you must, I trust you will be bring it back safely to me.'_ To see the person beyond the wildfire and to feel their grief deeper than the flames that sear your own skin.

Beverly knew all too well what it was like to be alone, left with a wound that originated from love. It was a cruel fate.

She refused to let Richie go through this alone, whatever happened.

She turned to Ben, jaw squared and set as her green eyes refused to blink back at him, “We need to do this,” she said, “for him.”

Ben closed his eyes, hand placed over her own, a steady breath escaping from his parted lips. A certain silence fell over them.

Unbeknownst to the other, they were both remembering the same moment, back in that fateful summer of 1989.

_ They had just slipped into that dank, desolate sewer for the first time, pulling themselves down the rings of that rusted ladder, Eddie cringing, screwing his eyes shut as he paused halfway down. _

“Oh God, I could totally get sick from this,” he moaned, white-knuckling the rungs like his life depended on it.

There, a good fifteen feet from the cold, concrete ground of It’s lair, it quite possibly did.

Richie, despite his shoot-off mouth, seemingly chose to reserve this generally accepted thought to himself. The others didn’t dare speak up in fear that Eddie might back out.

“Awe, come on, Eddie, you’re alright,” he said flippantly, but a concerned tone had seeped through his voice.

Back then, Beverly had attributed it to the fear that he might bail and leave the six of them to face It alone. Now, knowing Richie and his psychology better than ever,  especially when it came down to Eddie, she knew it went far deeper than that.

Eddie had shook his head, looking sickly and pale-faced, “No, no. If I touch rusty metal I’ll have to get another tetanus shot and those  hurt. They hurt so _bad_. Richie...”

Richie, already standing at the bottom of the sewers, had looked up at him behind those Coke-bottle glasses, a gentle but firm look on his face. Richie had never been patient a day in his life, unless it was with Eddie.  _Always_ with Eddie.

“Come on, Eds,” he placated, sighing before adding, “you’ll be fine— I promise.”

That seemed to get Eddie moving, albeit through brimming tears and tentative steps down. Richie never made promises, so he had to have been serious.  Beverly remembered Stan looking at her curiously, the both of them along with Richie on the sewer floor, Ben in tow as well. Bill had been hovering up above, waiting for Eddie to descend. 

Perhaps, looking back, that was the first moment they realised there was more to Richie than they originally perceived.

_ Everybody has a secret _ _,_ Beverly remembered thinking instinctively— a sentiment seemingly pulled from that outer space, devoid of meaning at the moment, but meaning everything some twenty seven years later.

Eddie had descended one coppery rung after another, eyes squeezed shut, his aspirator a snug weight in his jean pocket. When he finally got within a five foot range, Richie had caught him, pulling him into a bone-crushing hug, popping the inhaler in his mouth as he took a wheezing inhale.

The gasping sound had echoed throughout the hollow sewers, ricocheting off the walls until a steady silence moved in on the room like clouds over the horizon.

“See? I knew you had it in you, Eds!” Richie had exclaimed jovially, no one missing the fact he still had Eddie tucked under his arm, leaning against his chest.

He had hacked a spluttering cough, but didn’t protest to the contact, leaning into it, in fact, if anything. 

It was at_ that_ moment that the Losers realised that perhaps there was more that Eddie feared apart from disease and his own mother, and i t was that moment that they all decided for themselves that Eddie was starting to face those fears.

Somewhere in that dank, cold sewer, Pennywise grew smaller.

“Don’t call me Eds,” Eddie had mumbled, barely audible to the rest of them, “you know I—“

They were interrupted by the distinct clapping sound of Bill’s sneakers hitting the concrete ground, a determined look on his face.

“Y-You guys r-ruh-ready?”

* * *

They had trudged along the horrific pathways of Pennywise’s lair for twenty minutes. Stan had just nearly been mauled by the woman in the Modigliani painting, his face etched with nasty red slash marks, tears still drying on his face as the Losers held him.

Bill had separated from the group, coming across a tattered rag-doll version of Georgie, his yellow rain slicker painted with blood where the stump of his arm ended.

They had followed the sound of his shaky voice, standing tentatively back as Bill stepped forward, breath hitching in sobs.

“I wanna go home,” Georgie blubbered, “I miss you, I wanna be with Mom and Dad.”

“I...I want more than anything for you to be home,” Bill had responded, face crumpled in terrible brimming guilt, “Mom, and Dad...I miss you so much,” he murmured, walking towards him.

“I love you, Billy,” Georgie had spoke out into that cold, dark world.

But there was no warmth in that voice. His eyes, glassy and black, held no emotion behind those dams of tears. The sentiment was like an anchor, meant to chain Bill to the floor, where he could live forever in that horrible, sickening guilt until it consumed him, leaving nothing but a throbbing, shattered heart behind.

“I love you too,” Bill all but whispered, chest heaving sporadically, hands shaking as he raised the butt of the gun to Georgie’s forehead,  “but you’re not Georgie.”

The sound of the bullet passing through his head was deafening, filling the room like an explosion, his grief derailing like a freight train as it tore a hole through the dirt, where Bill was struggling not to fall in.

And then...

_ Silence. _

Awful, suffocating silence.

The Losers had looked at each other then, hearts coming to a dead stop in their chests and wondering:

_ What the hell did we just do?  _

And that’s when the growling started. Georgie’s body convulsed like a live-wire, skin pulsing like there was something inside trying to kick its way out.

There were screams, a low, guttural roar, and the wet sloshing sounds of It breaking its way through Georgie’s lifeless body, shedding it like a skin as he slunk into existence. 

He came to life on wobbly feet, like one of those collapsible wooden dogs. Eddie could be heard screaming in the background, the rest of the Losers contributing to a single order:

_ Kill It. Kill It. _

Bill’s ragged breath could be heard, a silent scream in his throat as Pennywise’s eyes retreated back to their normal state, making an awful crackling sound, body hunched over like a cripple.

Mike mumbled something incoherently, lost in the commotion, eyes wide as he clutched that long, black spear.

Bill grit his teeth, pulling back the gun with a determined  click , pressing it unashamedly against the clown’s head.

“Hey, it’s not loaded!” Mike protested, but they could hardly hear over the sound of Pennywise slumping over, garbled nonsense dripping from his lips.

A kettle-boil of a scream cut through the air as Pennywise seized, bones crackling as he convulsed and snapped his eyes back towards the Losers, looking more deranged than ever.

He pounced on Bill, chomping down on the metal of the gun, and the Losers screamed as he wrestled him to the ground, and endless field of needle-point teeth just inches away from his warm pulse, from his bared neck.

The Losers attacked in jumbled order, Mike slamming against the wall with incredible force, slumping down as he groaned.

Richie had jumped onto his back, patterned shirt billowing in the action as the rest of the gang did their part in abusing Pennywise, holding him down.

Stanley flew much like Mike had moments before, followed by a yelling Richie, and then Beverly, who hurried the others away as Bill lay pinned against the ground, Pennywise hovering over him like a lion.

His gloved hands gripped Bill’s chin, clamping down on his throat as he struggled and gasped.

_“No, _don’t,” Beverly demanded hoarsely, “let him _go.”_

_“No,”_ Pennywise shook his head manically, “I’ll  take him...I’ll take  _all_ of you.  And I’ll  _f-f-feast_ on your  flesh as I  _feed_ on your  _fear .”_

A few feet away, Richie sat, panting.

Unbeknownst to the rest of the Losers at the time, Richie had been internally making a decision that would end up saving them all.

Pennywise held up a shaking finger, golden eyes unblinking as his mouth remained painted into that horrible gaping cavern.

“Or...you’ll just leave us be,” he clutched Bill’s face roughly, clamping a gloved hand over his mouth, “I’ll take him... _only_ him. And then I will have my _ long_ rest, and you...will  all _live_...to  _grow _and _ thrive_ , and lead  _happy_ lives...until old age takes you back to the _weeds.”_

On the ground, a kind of grim determination came over Richie’s eyes.

Through wheezing breaths, Bill managed a tearful, “Leave...I’m the one who dragged you all into this. I’m s-suh-suh—so sorry.”

_“S-Suh-Sorry,”_ Pennywise laughed drily, hand squeezing even more tightly around his throat.

“Go!” Bill yelled hoarsely.

The Losers looked at each other, paralysed.

“Guys...I mean, we can’t!” Beverly protested.

She had loved him well enough back then.

They all had.

“I’m s-s-sorry,” Bill whispered, a tone of resignation in his voice as he stopped struggling.

Three feet away, Richie struggled to his feet.

“I told you Bill. I fucking told you. I don’t wanna die...it’s your fault.”

Pennywise grimaced a disgusting grin, holding Bill closer, predatorily.

In It’s grasp, Bill teared up, gazing sorrily at Richie. There wasn’t a semblance of anger in those eyes, just understand. Just guilt.

It was that guilt that edged Richie forward.

He started to pace, numbering instances on his fingers, “You punched me in the face, you made me walk through shitty water, you brought me to a fuckin’ crackhead house...”

Pennywise leered in morbid pride, holding Bill tighter.

“And now...” Richie grabbed the baseball bat.

He looked at Pennywise’s stupid face.

“I’m gonna have to kill this fuckin’ clown.”

Pennywise dropped Bill like a dead weight.

“Welcome to the Losers club,  asshole!” he yelled as Pennywise clambered towards him.

It pounced...and Richie’s bat cut through the air, smacking him square in the jaw as he stumbled back with a gasp.

One by one, the Losers faced the physical manifestations of their fears, until Pennywise was reduced to a blubbering, gasping figure slinking back into the well in defeat.

_They owed it all to Richie that day, _ Beverly and Ben couldn’t help but think.

They_ owed_ him.

Shakily, Beverly looked into Ben’s eyes, “We have to do this.”

Nodding, they rose from the bed and started to pack.


	12. Chapter Twelve

_[It was nighttime now— not that Eddie could tell, at least not from his location. In that cold, dark sewer, day was just as dismal as night. But there exists a kind of urgency in the night. The sense that a change is encroaching upon you, impeding, shifting._

_ In the nighttime, the monsters in the dark seem a bit more plausible, the air like acid, the walls resembling faces in such startling paralysis that you can’t reason it away.  Nighttime invites trouble, and it invites it with flourishing words printed on card-stock paper, willingly, temptingly, so alluringly, it can’t be resisted or changed. The invitation to trouble is sent on its way with a red wax seal, and the sweet kiss of death _

_ The dark has a way of seducing danger, taking it to its bed and ravishing it until you called it home. Until you called it love. _

_ Eddie isn’t comfortable in this endless spans of night, and that is a good omen indeed. One cannot be afraid of the dark without first being able to remember light.  _

_ In that rotted, drenched sewer, Eddie trudged along, mere miles away from salvation, well within the home-stretch. _

_ But he had never felt so uneasy.] _

* * *

One thing that Eddie noticed about  the sewers was that they were alarmingly consistent.

If you disregard the serpentine pathways of it all, they were nothing if not predictable, palpable, and manically repetitive. 

The slow drip of run-off sewage continued to echo, falling unceremoniously into the dark waters. His ears had started ringing— a compensation for the utter silence, or perhaps a manifestation of his own exhaustion.

A furious burn radiated through his legs, singing his muscles and locking his knees as he stumbled forward, each clambering step paining him.

His jaw was tight and aching from gritting it so hard. His ears swum, mingled with his vision. Eddie could  _hear_ the darkness as it called to him, pulling him down like a sailor to a siren, its sweet voice fanning over his ear. His temples throbbed with fatigue, mouth dry and caked over with some kind of white, dehydrated film. His hands were freezing, numb and glove-like as they sunk towards the ground like corpses returning home.

His nose was bleeding— raw from the chill. He half-halfheartedly swiped a stray trickle of blood away, and disregarded the way it continued to flow as he wiped his hand on his shirt.

Eddie had simultaneous never felt more and less like himself.

The paranoia was bad too— spending twenty-four hours in a desolate, haunted sewer wasn’t too good on the nerves, and that was only the time he’d be  _conscious_. Eddie shivered at the thought he’d been down here just a week short of a month. He should have been rotting and well on his way to decomposing by now. But instead, he was here, straggling through the sewers like a zombie, hunger gnawing at his stomach like a wolf. 

_ He must not have been starving the entire time he’s been down here _ _,_ he thought distantly. _He would have been skeletal and too weak to stand if he had been._

He reasoned that, by some twisted logic only in effect in the core of Derry, he managed to stay suspended in a kind of trance-like state for the better half of a month, escaping relatively unscathed.

_Unscathed_— at the thought, the wound on his stomach ached pointedly, spitting up some kind of disgusting conglomeration of pus and blood.  Thankfully, it seemed to be relatively untouched by the waters he was wading in, and Eddie found himself hoping that it wouldn’t get infected until he got out of this hellhole. 

Hellhole...the metallic sounds of pipes groaning and protesting under the weight of the sewage made an eerie soundtrack that did nothing to placate Eddie’s live-wire nerves.

The temperature seemed to drop to sub-zero, his bottom lip cracking and trembling, no doubt going blue as he dragged himself further and further along.

His body shivered weakly— a measly attempt at retaining some semblance of heat.

And just when Eddie was about to keel over and give into the urging, violent need for sleep, he heard something that made his blood freeze to ice inside his veins.

A slow, straggling drag of a clubbed foot, scratching languidly along the concrete floor.

Had anything natural been making it, the sound should have been swallowed up by the water.

It wasn’t.

Eddie’s eyes widened, creaking behind his drooping eyelids, now alert as he felt a whisper of a chill run down his spine.

Then came the splashing.

A clumsy, staggered kick ripped through the water like a current, like a knife. It sounded like when someone tried to run through the ocean at a beach, and it was getting closer.  Yanking himself out of that slow-drip paralysis of fear that bled through his veins, he spun around on his heel, met with the decrepit, sore-covered face of the leper.

It wasn’t just any leper— it was the one that first chased him on Neibolt street all those years ago, that fateful summer day.

His face was gashed and torn, big, gaping wounds gawking at Eddie like eyeballs, thin mucusy webs of tendons spilling out like angel hair pasta over his moth-eaten skin.  A few strands of dead hair clung stubbornly to his forehead, where bugs crawled and twitched, burrowing further into that barren forest of fuzz.  He gaped at Eddie, mouth rotted and black, a thick trail of spit the same colour plopping wetly into the water, coating his chin, where it sizzled and burned like acid.  His mouth was full of open sores, red and painful looking— brimming with infection. Blood seeped onto his tongue, squirting through the gaps between his few remaining teeth.

He grinned, and straggled towards Eddie.

His body was covered with lesions— raised and blackening, weeping some kind of filmy fluid. His skin was nearly eaten away, and frog-like in texture.

Eddie wanted to scream.

Instead, he stayed silent, feeling his head go faint as he stumbled backwards, almost calm in the overwhelming surge of fear.

“Eddie,” the leper rasped, exposing thin vocal chords in the hollow of his neck. He outstretched a thin, bony hand, eaten away with age and decay. In his palm rested an array of pills— red and white, “time to take—

_ —your pills _ _,”_ his mother said, dropping a capful of shiny capsules in front of him, grinning like it was a full-course meal.

Really, it had enough variety that it might be considered as such; vitamin E, C, D, and B-12 for good measure. Huddled into a little pocket by themselves like giggling school girls sat iron, calcium, and magnesium— blindingly white, like snow coating the roof of a house, or Eddie’s own mouth.  Some good old fashioned Myadec mingled with a One-A-Day tablet— the chalky, adult kind, of course, his mother would never give him the gummy, sugary variety-

_ ‘They’ll give you diabetes, Eddie!’ _

And all by its lonesome, so as to not chatter to the other pills, sat an orange and white horse-pill of a medication that twenty seven years later, Eddie would identify as a particularly potent form of ADHD medication.  Eddie sat at the kitchen table, casted arm aching something fierce. It was like someone shoved woof splinters through his bones, which is exactly what happened.

Eddie was bored, miserable and furiously  itchy. Nobody told him that having a cast would be so_ itchy_— if they had, he might have asked the doctors to leave his arm hanging limply by his side instead.

He swallowed a few painkillers willingly, closing his eyes as he felt the medicine slow through his veins— a temporary respite. 

But he just stared blankly at the cornucopia of pills before him that his mother was trying to coerce into his mouth.

“Well?” she asked, standing in front of him— pink, plump and quickly growing annoyed, “Aren’t you going to take them?”

Eddie looked past her floral rucksack of a dress, garishly bright peonies staring back at him as he sighed, utterly and completely bored.  The sun was filtering through the window, casting specks of dust into orbit through the air that, if Mrs. Kaspbrak would have seen, would have a fit immediately.

_ ‘You’re allergic to dust, Eddie! You mustn’t expose yourself to any dust, dander, or dirt. And stay off that grass, you know how your allergies get!’ _

Eddie was just silently grateful that she seemed to have forgotten to give him his allergy medication. If he had to eat another pill, he felt as though he would puke.

While scientists seem to have settled on the conclusion that the four necessary elements for life are carbon, oxygen, hydrogen and nitrogen, the four elements to sustain any healthy prepubescent boy’s spirit was, in fact, everything Sonia Kaspbrak hated;

_ Dirt, dander, dust, and grass. _

Sure, he was a paranoid hypochondriac— it was written into his genes. But deep down inside, a hunger grew and pained him, the desire to get filthy and muddy and be a  _kid._

Sunlight filtered through the window and around Mrs. Kaspbrak’s frame. Had it been anyone else, it would have almost looked angelic, but all Eddie could think of in that moment was how that shell of a mother was the only thing encroaching on his reach to the outside world. 

Eddie stood up, the chair screeching against the floor, and before his mother could chide him, Eddie was running his mouth.

“My sickness? What sickness, Ma?” he took a nearby bottle of pills, mouth twitching as he brought it into her eyesight.

“You know what these are? They’re gazebos!” he yelled, smashing it on the ground, pills skittering like roaches behind the couch, “They’re _bullshit!”_

Sonia watched the medication settle in various corners of the room before training her gaze back on him, “They _help_ you, Eddie,” she said, voice low and alarmingly steady, “I had to protect you.”

He felt her placating, subtlycondescending tone wash over him like a wave, pulling him deeper and deeper into submission.

He knew that in a moment, she would envelope him in a bone-crushing hug and the last remaining dredges of his own indignation would putter out like a wheezing car engine.

Eddie pushed forward.

“Protect me? By lying to me, by keeping me locked inside this hellhole?!”

He took a gasp, eyes wide, “I’m sorry, but the only people that were actually trying to protect me were my friends."  He looked up at her pinkening face, jaw set, eyes heartless, “And you made me turn my back on them when I really needed them. So I’m going.”

He rushed past the door, her turning after him, yelling out a frantic, “Eddie, Eddie! You get back here!”

As he leapt off the porch, arm stinging as it jostled roughly, he had never felt more alive and yet, so _scared._

Eddie’s jaw squared at the memory, filled with a steely sense of determination much stronger than the overbearing clutch of sleep and of complacency.

He would  _not_ die in this hellhole again.

With a battle cry, he socked the leper in the face with the arm that had been broken all those years ago, and felt a sharp twinge as the old injury resurfaced.

He ignored it, “They’re gazebos, you asshole!” he yelled before shoving the leper into the shitty water, drowning it as it gargled and spat weakly, a stream of liquid pulsing up from his throat and spraying Eddie in the face.

He held it down tighter, gritting his teeth harshly as the leper convulsed, slowing before finally stopping altogether.

Silence.

And then the rubbery sound of a balloon bopping past.

_‘NINE OUT OF TEN DOCTORS AGREE THAT ASTHMA MEDICATION GIVES YOU CANCER,’_ the red balloon read in bloated white text.

“Oh, fuck  _off__,_” he said, thwacking it away, before continuing his trek out and away from that cold, dismal sewer.

He saw the light. 

He walked towards it.


	13. Chapter Thirteen

When Richie finally pulled himself up from the ground, it was nighttime. Not that Richie knew that, of course. But it was nighttime nonetheless.

He must have nodded off— head heavy with exhaustion and tears, and he felt a twinge of guilt as he realised that hours had passed without him looking for Eddie.

The next thing he felt was Patrick Hockstetter’s hand, or rather, the  lack of it. The gentle current had moved his wrist away from Richie, along with his body, but there it sat, sure as day, lying motionless in the waters.

A grin was still plastered over his face, whites of his eyes open and rolled towards Richie as he straggled up, looking at the bloated figure in distaste.

“Oh, fuck  _off_,” he muttered, pressing the soaked bottom of his shoe harshly into his face, his head rolling back complacently, half-submerged in the water now.

And then, shivering, he continued to walk down the dark tunnels.

He recogniaed this particular branch of the sewer, in spite of the seamless darkness that surrounded him. He could identify it with his eyes closed— and right now, in the all-encompassing black, he felt as though he had a pretty good idea of what that would be like. It turned his blood electric, his skin into one painful goose-bump. His breath hitched, and he  ached in remembrance. The last time he traversed this path, he didn’t so much as walk as he was dragged.

Dragged— _dragged_ away from...

_“Eddie,”_ Richie breathed, seeing the opening to that giant, cobweb-plastered room.

The place where they had left Eddie to die.

Everything had led up to this moment— all those twenty seven years and the countless more he shares with him, spending God-knows-how-long completely, utterly, shamefully in love with him.

It all lead up to this.

Every tear, every scream, every quiet whisper in the night as he clutched Eddie’s shirt to his chest.  Every joke, every minute, every single moment of Richie Tozier’s life was about to come together in one giant bang, reconciling every inch of his shame and grief over the last nearly three decades into something that made sense.

The only thing that _ever_ made sense.

Heart roaring in his chest, blood pooling in his ears, Richie took a deep breath, and pushed through the door.

“Eds!” he called, feeling a wave of euphoria crash over him. 

This was finally happening. 

He was finally going to get to see him again, hold him again. He was finally going to be able to say everything he never got to say;  Eddie, Eddie, oh my God, _Eddie__ —_

“Eddie?” Richie said quietly, coming to stand in the middle of the room, where large chunks of broken rubble emerged from the ground like the separating petals of a flower.

There, in the quiet corner where they had left Eddie to die, sat nothing but a small pool of blood, and a small scrap of fabric torn from a t-shirt.

_Eddie’s_ t-shirt.

Richie bore the tragic face of a man who was starting to realise the cold, callous truth of things and just wasn’t ready to face it. 

Wasn’t ready to stare into that cold, empty world. Wasn’t ready to step back into that house by himself again— retreating back for good like a heartbreakingly final tide at dusk. Wasn’t ready to face a world without Eddie in it— a sunless world where not everyone gets happy endings and it’s not such a crime.

So he continued to play along.

“Come on, Eds. Stop hiding, you bastard,” he laughed, the sound strangled and pained, but a smile rested on his face. “you were always so good at that...”

He knelt down on the ground, shoulders hunched as he smiled down at his lap, gently feeling the strip of fabric between his fingers. 

“I used to say it was because you were so  _small__,_” he chuckled to himself, blinking up at the ceiling, “yeah, you  hated that, didn’t you, Eds?”

He remembered one particularly significant game of hide and seek amongst the Losers, that very summer where everything changed. 

When It was known— no longer a figment of the imagination, but still but a shadow in the dark. A cold, clawed hand pushing daisies up from the wet earth, a glare in your eyes when you turn away from the sun.  In that safe, comfortable pocket of time— so fleeting, and yet seeming to last forever. The gentle moments before the turning point in their lives, where the last dredges of their childhood bleed slowly down the pages like water from the quarry, moving languidly down their skin, the sun a warm and hopeful omen above them.

_ It was a stiflingly hot day— far too hot to be outside, and that’s how the Losers found themselves tucked into various nooks of Mrs. Kaspbrak’s house as cicadas burred lowly outside. _

Eddie’s mom, of course, as you might have guessed, wasn’t home when this large-scale game of hide and seek commenced, and they made damn sure she wasn’t home before it ended.  She would have a fit if she knew Eddie had snuck what she so affectionately described as the ‘riff-raff’ into her home while she visited Eddie’s aunts just a few towns over for the day.

So, the Losers lay low that day, keeping a careful ear trained for the tell-tale sound of a car coming up the driveway or a particularly large woman hobbling up the steps.

But there had been perhaps no one as quiet as Eddie that day as he slipped into his mother’s closet, the distant sound of counting drowned out by his own relentless thoughts as he peered around the claustrophobic room.  Richie had joined him all but two minutes later, standing expectantly in the crook of the door, which had been left half-heartedly agape like a person’s mouth in the middle of a sentence.

There was so much to be said about that dim silence. But silence, as silence usually does, continued to hold its secrets.  Luckily, Richie wouldn’t have known silence if silence knocked on his door and slapped him in the face. So Richie had done what he always did best—

He started to run his mouth.

“Either you’re not trying, or you’re always this bad at following instructions.”

Eddie had jumped, as if startled by Richie’s presence. Fair enough— most people were. The door creaked loudly on its hinged as Richie twitchingly pushed it aside, stepping further into the room. H e wore a self-satisfied grin on his face as he delved into the bubbling, murky depths of another one of the Voices he would try—and fail, to perfect over the years.

_“Eddie is a pleasant and conscientious student_— not to mention  cute, cute, _cute!_ But he fails to understand even the most basic of instructions!” Richie had crowed, smiling ear to ear, jostling Eddie gently with his arm, being mindful of his cast.

Eddie had just frowned to himself, eyes trained on something in his hand, sitting himself down on the floor. No eye roll, no fiery bite back, just a small and disheartened, “Beep beep, Richie.”

Richie remembered frowning that day, feeling his heart ache distantly.He also remembered the words that had come out of his mouth next.

“Room for me down there, Eddie Spaghetti?”

He had coaxed a small laugh out of Eddie at that, the boy scooting over pointedly, leaving a small space in the tiny room for Richie to slide beside him.  Richie had to hunch over in that awkward, gangly way that came with the growing pains of budding adolescence, an impressive growth spurt setting up camp in the Tozier body that summer like a wandering gypsy. 

Eddie had snorted, looking at him almost fondly as he crumpled up beside him, glasses askew, “Not if you keep growing there won’t be.”

“Not all of us can be small and cute like you, Eds,” Richie had responded in a sort of,  _‘what are you gonna do about it’_ tone, laughing when Eddie’s face scrunched up.

“Don’t make me punch you in my mother’s closet, Richie,” he said snippily, words chopped and rushed like always, before adding softly, “and don’t call me Eds.”

Richie remembered feeling his heart warm at that— the subtle way Eddie’s mouth twitched, as if he was trying to hold back a smile. He remembered feeling very warm in a way he could no longer blame on the suffocating summer heat outside.

And then he remembered where they were.

“Say, Eds, why  are we in Mrs. Kaspbrak’s closet?” he inquired, looking around, “I already have a pair of her underwear, but thanks for the thought.”

Eddie had gasped at that, clocking Richie in the shoulder with his good arm, wincing as it shot an arrow of pain through his still-healing one.

“That is  _so_ fucking disgusting, Richie, why—“

“Eds,” he had interrupted, looking at him seriously.

He’d never forget the way Eddie had remained tense for a moment, before deflating like a balloon as his back hit the wall of the closet. He fiddled with that thing in his hand again, and then subtly let it into Richie’s view, flat in his palm.  It was a compass— etched with peeling brown leather and strung onto a rusty bronze chain. The needles still spun loyally, and Richie found himself marvelling at how something so ancient could still work.

He was about to express some semblance of that thought when Eddie’s shy voice had filled the silence.

“I was trying to find this,” he said quietly, fingers running over it in almost childlike wonder. He screwed his eyes shut, as if holding back tears before whispering, “it was my dad’s.”

Richie remembered that moment being dizzying— his dynamic with Eddie halting on its axis as every joke on the tip of his tongue melted, leaving only honey in his words and stars in his eyes.

“Eds, I—“

“My mom took it away,” he added, even more quietly. 

“That  _ bitch_ _,_” Richie snarled, and for once, Eddie hadn’t protested to the blatant slander of his own mother.

That had only concerned Richie more, but he hadn’t had a chance to act on it before Eddie had been speaking into the silence again, his voice still soft, and yet filled with some kind of quiet rebellion.

“I want to keep it,” he said, avoiding Richie’s eyes that implored him determinedly, “but there’s no way I could. My mom...”

“I could keep it for you,” Richie had blurted out with the sheer impulse of a man blind with love, hastily followed by the kind of shame belonging to the same identity, “if...if you want, of course.

Eddie turned towards him, staring at his heated face as if trying to gauge if he was being serious or, well... _ Richie. _

Whatever he was searching for, he must have found, Richie thought to himself, because then his face had softened as he nodded his head, voice hardly above a whisper as he said, “Okay.”

He pressed a hand over Richie’s curls, guiding him to bow his head as he carefully slipped the chain over his head. Under any other circumstance, Richie would have made a joke about him needing to update his tetanus shot, but he remained quiet as Eddie’s fingers brushed softly against the side of his neck.

His hand had instinctually flew up to touch the compass, closing over Eddie’s as they locked eyes for one pulse-stuttering, thick moment.

That was when the other Losers had come calling for Richie, heading in the direction of Mrs. Kaspbrak’s room.

Richie had pulled a smiling Eddie to his feet, reconvening with the disgruntled gang in the hall.

“What the hell, Richie?” Stan frowned, “You’re terrible at finding people!”

Richie had just slung an arm around Eddie, ruffling the soft curls that had just begun to grow out and said, “Well I managed to find this here boy, right Eddie Spaghetti?”

Eddie had just rolled his eyes, punching him softly in the arm before wriggling out of his grip.

And as he spotted that small smile beginning to come over Eddie’s face, Richie knew he was going to be okay.

Eddie grinned back at the group, shooting Richie a brief exasperated smile, “This time, I’m the seeker!”

_ Richie had brought his hand up to the compass and—- _

He let his fingers close over the small pendant, fingers brushing over the cool glass. His knees had started to ache against the cold concrete floor, but he stayed there, head bowed.

“I still have it, Eds,” he whispered into the empty room, “after all these years. I promised you I’d keep it safe....”

The silence greeted him like an overbearing relative, coercing him into its cold, dead arms. 

_ I promised I’d keep you safe too. _

Richie looked over at the small stain of red that bled into the grey ground, long since dried and crackling across the concrete.

A few feet away sat Richie’s jacket he had used in a desperate attempt to stop the bleeding, sprawled lazily across the floor like a drunk. Blood was still seeped into the fabric— a rough and heavy weight on it.

Richie brought it closer to him, holding it to his chest like a child might do with a teddy bear, burying his nose in the soft fabric.

He let his eyes shut and started to remember how—

_ Eddie had crawled up Richie’s body, hovering over Richie’s face, whites of his eyes showing as he slipped out of the trance of the Deadlights. _

Richie’s eyes had widened, breath stuttering in his throat as he realized how fucking  close Eddie was— just mere inches from his face.

“I really killed him, buddy! Hey, Richie, listen. I think I got him, man!”

Eddie looked behind him briefly, and as he turned back towards Richie, his smile was like a halo of warmth beaming down on Richie’s face—  God, that fucking  _smile._

_ I love you _ _,_ Richie had thought in that moment, and the words were just ghosting over his lips when Eddie continued.

“I did it! I think I got him for real!”

Just as Richie was about to place his hand on Eddie’s cheek, fingers grazing the soft skin under his eye as he prepared himself to speak the words he’d been waiting to say for almost thirty years, a fountain of blood splattered over his face.

Eddie’s gullet had been skewered by one of Pennywise’s appendages, impaling his soft skin through his cotton shirt. 

For one horrible, unforgettable moment that would forever haunt Richie, Eddie’s grin remained plastered on his face, oblivious to his fatal wound and the sound of Richie’s heart breaking in two.  And then, like a storm cloud over the horizon, a horrible flicker of realisation hazed over his eyes.

Richie distantly heard someone screaming, and it wasn’t until hours later that he realized it had been him— the sound ripping its way out of his body from that dark place deep down inside of him; one final roar of indignation for what had never gotten to see the light.

_“Richie,”_ Eddie had whimpered— voice child-like and shaky.

He had looked at Richie, desperate to see how he could get them out of this one. Richie had an odd way of fixing things, but after seeing that claw pierce Eddie’s chest,  everything seemed to be broken. 

“ Richie,” Eddie repeated, black blood spilling thickly out of his mouth like it had that day at Neibolt.

_ It knew all along _ _,_ Richie remembered thinking in that moment,  _ It knew and so did I._

Richie had stared down the face of his worst nightmare, unaware it would set off an echo through the universe and bring him right back here twenty seven years later, sobbing on his knees as his luck finally ran out.  Richie remembered clutching Eddie to his chest as he died, his wounds weeping blood that soaked through Richie’s own shirt, caking against his skin. He remembered seeing the light in Eddie’s eyes dim as they fluttered one last time before stopping in their sockets, still wide with fear.

He remembered feeling the blood roaring in his ears, feeling faint and detached as he held Eddie’s limp body in a death-grip against his own, nose buried in the fine hairs at the nape of his neck.

“No, don’t leave, Eds. _Don’t leave...”_ he had sobbed frantically, breath hitching in small, choked-off hiccups as he felt Beverly pull him away.

_ Honey, honey. He’s dead. _

Richie was shaking violently on the cold, concrete floor, his jaw quivering as he seized and trembled, suffocating waves of nausea crashing over him until he was gasping for breath, clutching at his throat, clutching at his chest.

“You fucking  _bitch__,_” he found himself screaming, the sound ripped out of him, voice raw as the testimony ricocheted off the cold, bare walls. 

_Why did you do that? _ Richie’s subconscious asked— a whisper in the storm as he lay crumpled on the ground.

_ I don’t know _ _,_ he responded, lower lip quivering as he brought his arms closer against his chest, face buried in that jacket like a safety blanket.

But he knew well enough.

Shakily rising to his feet, Richie left that cruel, unforgiving room. And then he ran— faster than Silver against the whipping winds, faster than the Devil himself and all of Richie’s own demons; faster than his own heart and the crushing weight of grief.  Richie fled from that cold, invisible Eddie and into the dark, winding paths of the sewers, tears freezing against his face as they stained his grimy skin. Richie ran, and he didn’t stop until he was coming out the other end of that hopeless canal and down the beaten road to his childhood home, staring at him sympathetically, like an old friend.

Branches whipped against his face as he cut through the Barrens, slashing red, angry lines across his wet cheeks, but Richie didn’t notice the sting as the familiar road came into view.  He leaned all his weight onto the front door, legs weak and wobbly as he trailed up the stairs, collapsing like a dead weight onto the bed, where he crumpled up and cried— cold, miserable, and helpless in the jaws of ruthless, consuming grief.

As Richie fell into a dreamless sleep, he found himself thinking,  _Beverly was wrong._

Eddie was gone, and he wasn’t coming back.


	14. Chapter Fourteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quote at the end of chapter is from ‘Don’t It Make You Want To Go Home?’ by Bobby Bare 💖

_ [It was 6 pm, and Beverly Marsh’s Chicago-to-Derry plane had just begun to descend from the thick, airless mass of clouds in the sky. Beside her sat Ben Hanscom, who was worrying at a mint with a pensive look on his face. She grabbed his hand, squeezing gently. Just a few hundred feet below them rest the sleepy town of Derry.  _

_ They were going home.] _

Beverly’s hand trembled slightly over Ben’s, her scarlet red bottom lip slipping into her mouth as she worried at it, pace pale under the dim lights of the plane’s hall.

“You okay?” Ben whispered, leaning over the small armrest that separated them.

Beverly looked over at him, green eyes glimmering with something like fear— twitching and uneasy.

“I’m alright,” she said slowly, exhaling a small breath as her eyes fluttered close, head sinking into the back of the seat, “just wondering if the others are on their way.”

“You know they are, Bev,” Ben said softly.

“But what if they decide not to come?” she responded, voice tense, like a rubber band one tug away from snapping under that horrible prodding tension.

Ben just looked at her, looking more determined than she’d ever recalled him looking in the twenty seven years she’d known him.

“They will,” he said.

And as the metal vessel cut through the white sky like a searing knife, tumbling and free-falling into the jaws of every childhood fear reincarnated, straight into the ugly, dangerous maw of Derry— Beverly closed her eyes and hoped for the third time that day that Ben was right.

* * *

_ [Somewhere along that great, rolling battlefield that made up the sky, Bill Denbrough was having his last drink of the flight, his flight set to land in an hour’s time. He had been on the plane for five of them already, hands trembling as he brought the cheap whisky to his mouth. _ His laptop sat abandoned on the tray table in front of him— his struggling manuscript practically begging him to bring his fingers to the keys and write something, anything. But he found himself unable to tear his eyes away from the window, watching as the world idled for a brief moment.

_ Things wouldn’t be so stagnant on the ground.] _

A muffled announcement came over the speakers, a distant flicker of light in the corner of Bill’s peripheral, mingling boredly with the droning sounds of passengers commenting tiredly and a curt beeping sound.  The air was thin and stale, a bead of sweat traversing slowly down his arm, stopping anti-climatically, where it settled on the skin of his flank. Despite the balmy climate of the metal box and Bill’s smart jacketclinging aptly to his body, he felt a full-body shiver freeze through him, pooling cooly at his feet.

He thought about his childhood home back in Derry, where a cozy Hallmark-like family had taken up residence, the youngest child— wide-eyed and touched by It’s glacial, unforgiving graze,  holes burnt into his eyes from that oppressive, inescapable fire that brewed and sizzled behind those dead pupils.

He had died in that fun-house, the night of the Canal Day Festival, only a thin pane of mirrored glass and a God-less world standing between him, the kid, and salvation.

Pennywise had torn him apart in front of his eyes, the thick, youthful blood splattering across the glass like paintballs— a whole life over, just as quick as that.

He examined a newspaper tucked inside of the front pocket of his seat.

_‘THE DERRY TIMES’_ it read, in old, Shakespearean scrawl. Below the sprawling title lay a small box dedicated to announcements. Beside an ad for a babysitter, with horrifically sick irony, sat a _‘__missing__,’_poster, the young girl’s cheerful face etched in black ink. She had a handprint splotch of grey across her one cheek— a birthmark, and an impressive one at that. The kind you would have gotten bullied for back at Derry Elementary all those years ago. The kind you would have gotten bullied for even_ now._

Bill felt a twinge in his chest, felt the air flee his lungs in one curt, indignant motion.

_She’s probably dead too,_ he thought glumly.

He thought about that family; how it was probably becoming a skeleton of its true form by now— a dead carcass of what once _was_. Were they still clinging to the hope that that boy could still be alive like Bill had, or had they accepted the callous, unforgiving truth like his father had?  Bill couldn’t decide which reaction was braver. Bill couldn’t decide which reaction would tear you up the least inside.

Hands trembling, he brought the glass to his mouth again, finishing his whiskey in one shuddering gulp.

He remembered the way the heat had seemed to fled the Denbrough residence the day Georgie died. The way the house seemed to drop thirty degrees when they found his torn-off rain-slicker-clad arm poised by the sewers.  How his mother’s piano playing grew more and more dismal, the keys falling languidly out of tune as his mother played like a woman trying to flee from her demons in every rush of her fingers over the slick, ivory keys.

The strings grew weary and the top collected dust, until the music stopped entirely.

The sound was soon replaced by the near-constant resonance of his mother’s blubbering, gasping sobs filtering up the stairs and through the grates of the vent in his bedroom.

He remembered banging his fists against the wall until his knuckles were cracked and bleeding before throwing his hands over his ears as he slid down that bruised wall and onto the floor, where he collapsed into hitching sobs.

_ Stop crying!  _ he wanted to scream,  _ the rest of us are keeping it all inside— it’s not fair, it’s not fair!_

But deep down inside, he knew his father was doing just as a paltry job at coping. Sometimes Bill heard loud bangs come from the garage late at night, like someone had taken a sledgehammer to the house.

He’d wake up and walk the splintered trails left behind.

And if there was a gravitational force that bound the Denbrough family together, it was broken the day Georgie died, sending all of them careening into that unfamiliar territory, lost to the ever-relentless push and pull of time.  Bill was floating in that empty space— that cold, cruel universe, piercing screams cutting through the air like a knife, severing the strings that once bound them together.

_You feel the same way__,_ Bill had thought every day,  _so why are you crying so far apart?_

Yes, he’d clutched his hands over his ears, blood spilling over his cheeks and tainting his tears as he cried and cried and cried.

_ “ Bill _ _,”_ he remembered Beverly asking the next day, _ “are you—_

—alright?” a voice beside him said, and he dropped the empty shot glass onto the ground, shattering it.

The twinkly sounds of it crackling over the ground came to a dead stop near his foot, which hovered over the pieces, stunned.

“I’m sorry, what?” Bill said, turning his head to look at the flight attendant standing in the aisle next to him, who was beginning to look concerned.

“I said, are you alright, sir?” she repeated, looking curiously at him.

He shivered, letting out a breathless wheeze of a laugh. It was mirthless, and weighed heavily on the air.

“I’m fine,” he said, subtly shifting the shards of glass away from him, adjusting his shirt collar self-consciously.

“Very good, sir,” she said, eyes darting down the aisles. She was like a nervous bird, Bill thought, and then with a tug on his heart:

_ Stan. _

“You must put your seatbelt on,” she said apologetically, glancing pointedly at the flashing sign to his right, “I’m afraid we’ve been experiencing some turbulence. More than originally expected.”

“Yeah,” Bill said, buckling up his seatbelt, and then, more to himself than to her, said, “that’s always how it goes, isn’t it?”

Glancing at him briefly once again, she furrowed her brows, creasing a small line in her forehead. She was young, and the years had done little to age her,_ decay_ her.

“Sir, are you certain you’re alright?” 

Bill just looked at her so distantly he was almost looking  past her, eyes fogged over with a kind of gaze that made the flight attendant shiver next to him, as if she’d been dumped into a bucket of ice water.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” he asked, a small smile on his face, “I’m going home.”

* * *

_ [Nestled in the worn, upholstered chairs of Derry’s airport sat Mike Hanlon, a pensive look on his face, and a gold watch on his wrist. He watched the time tick by; slowly, languidly, and wondered briefly if the others were doing the same] _

Mike perhaps was the most comfortable of them all to be back in Derry, having lived there for twenty seven years of his life.

In fact, Derry felt more like a home to him than Florida did, which was a scary thought. Unbeknownst to Mike Hanlon, the sentiment was universal amongst the Losers, who felt less like they were walking towards their doom and more like they were walking straight through the front door of their own childhood homes. The funny thing about sour familiarity is that it is still familiarity nonetheless. Deep down inside, whether you like it or not, something has planted roots deep inside of you, and just like a riptide, it can drag you back down to the weeds whenever it pleases. It wouldn’t even be hard.

That hot summer day of 1989 when they had brought that jagged piece of glass to their palms and made an oath bound them all together with Derry, inextricably. There was nothing they could do to change that.

Offhandedly, Mike wondered if, if given the chance:

_ Would they have? _

_ Could they have? _

The thing about wielding a sledgehammer is that, when you do, everything starts to look like a nail. And that’s what the spirit of Derry did; exploited your weaknesses, ripping open those jagged, throbbing wounds, and ramming into them until you cried mercy, _mercy._

And  then Derry would smile, and carry on destroying.

That’s just what Derry  did— Mike knew well enough. The evil didn’t flee Derry every twenty seven years, just grew less localized. And maybe that was worse; when you couldn’t place the wound. Where you could place the beating, pulsing heart of it all. Where you didn’t know  what to fear.

Checking his watch once again, Mike Hanlon slumped deeper into his seat, and waited for the others to arrive.

* * *

The Losers met in a perfect juxtaposition of how it happened all those years ago the summer of 1989.

There was no Ben Hanscom sliding clumsily down the jagged rocks of the quarry, stomach yanked up to his tits with Henry Bowers’ initials bleeding fiercely from his belly.

There was no Bowers gang after them— there was no Bowers gang at all.

But perhaps the loss they felt the deepest was the absence of Eddie sucking on his inhaler. It was this memory that pushed them further into that bed of silence, nobody daring to speak a word in fear of disturbing something fragile. In fear of meddling with factors they didn’t understand.  They just stood awkwardly, smack dab in the middle of that blindingly white airport, people skittering like roaches around them, paying no mind to the oddly powerful circle that had just reconnected.

They were back home.

Home— it’s funny how a place like Derry could still be home, in spite of everything that had happened. That that cold, piercing grip could still be so visceral. That deep down beneath Derry’s skeletal frame, a heart beat surely, steadily, and there, deep in that junction, their hearts beat there too. 

In a breath of silent agreement, they stepped into the cool, dark night. The sun had started to set in great haste, the last dredges of light squeezing out of the sky as the paling face of autumn reared its head.

Things were changing.

As they stepped into the taxi cab parked outside, they found themselves looking out the window, far into the horizon. If you had followed their path of eyesight at that moment, it would have lead you directly to the canal, where five minutes later, a very weary Eddie Kaspbrak would emerge.

As the engine sputtered to life, the car took off, roaring down the beaten paths of Derry for the very last time.

‘_All God's children get weary when they roam_

_ Don't it make you wanna go home? _

_ Don't it make you wanna go home?’ _


	15. Chapter Fifteen

Eddie had been following that little sliver of dim light for a half mile, legs nearly giving out from under him as he clutched his aching stomach, bile crawling its way up his throat.

He was tempted to keel over and vomit— anything to rid of that horrible, stale taste in his mouth—it was like waking up with ten hangovers, and it absolutely sickened him. But he hadn’t eaten anything in  _weeks__,_ and he couldn’t stand to imagine the physical toll dry retching would inflict upon him now, bruised and bloodied as he is. His whole body trembled weakly, and he could feel his pulse flickering under his skin, a sickly feverishness washing over him.

Eddie groaned lowly, swallowing thickly and trudging along. 

Sweat beaded on his forehead, practically sizzling on the heated skin as his body creaked and protested to each falling step. His vision was starting to grow fuzzy at the edges— eyes heavy in their sockets as small circles of light danced around his field of sight like the Deadlights.  His entire body ached— a dull and hot circle of pain radiating throughout his joints. His feet felt clumsy and heavy— as if weighed down by sandbags. He had a stubborn crick in his neck that he was too tired to do anything about, and he was soaked from head to toe in sewage water.

He felt like absolute shit.

He hadn’t felt this shitty since freshman year of college when he had gotten drunk off his ass at a frat party his roommate dragged him to, and he had puked into the bushes before crying at the curb.

He remembered that night in fragments— like he was pulling memories out of that outer space, that disembodied recollection of events floating before his blurring eyes. His head ached just trying to make sense of it.  Still, he furiously righted his capsizing mind, digging his feet harsher in the cold grit of the floor, as if to ground himself. His jaw ached. His tongue licked over a wound on the outside of his mouth.

And then he let himself slip into a memory, back to that night when...

_ Eddie had been practically dragged out of his dormitory, out of that snug, sterile room and into the cold, harsh night. The air bit like a dog, and Eddie clearly remembered protesting as he left that safe, familiar building, into the unknown. _

He had been placed with a rowdy roommate— a real prick with a complete disregard for niceties and the invisible line that separated Eddie’s side of the room from his own. 

He’d picked enough pairs of the guy’s dirty underwear off his own half of the floor to grow to not be fond of him. Still, though, there had been a certain kind of charm to him, beneath all that macho, disgusting outer layer, and maybe that’s what stopped Eddie from turning back around and finishing his homework like he intended to that night.

Or maybe, and he wouldn’t realise this for another twenty or so years, he had wanted, deep down, to rebel against his mother

How she would have hated the sight of her precious  _Eddie-Bear_ at a dingy, low-lit party—and a  _frat _ party at that. She would have paled at the sight of red solo cups like big, blaring alarms screeching through the dormitory walls. She would have  screamed at the sight of horny teenagers pressed against each other on the walls like tapestry hangings.

It was everything Mrs. Kaspbrak hated and everything Eddie had ever been denied of.

And maybe that was why he had found himself running to keep up with his roommate that night, abandoning all previous initiations in the cool air as he stepped into that stuffy fraternity house.  He would come running out of it even faster an hour or two later, Eddie remembered. But something had happened in between; something he hadn’t cared enough to remember, or feared enough to forget.

He clenched his eyes even more, wading blindly through the last stretch of the sewers, and tried to recollect exactly what happened that night.

_ They had walked through the beaten-up door of the house, and Eddie smelled the strong, heady scent of cheap alcohol immediately, permeating through his nostrils, sinking into his skin. _

_Isn’t it bad to inhale alcohol?_ He had thought desperately, mind scanning for red flags as the room suddenly seemed a lot smaller.

Before he could chicken out, a drink was being shoved in his hand— ambery brown and reeking of some kind of concoction of beer. Eddie had hardly ever drank, and he’d certainly never gotten _drunk._

“C’mon, Ed,” his roommate had said, jostling him roughly in the shoulder, either not noticing or not caring when Eddie’s body tensed reflexively, “what are you? A wuss?”

The words cut Eddie like a knife, slicing through that thick hesitation, springing a nerve deep inside him. 

His childhood tormentors’ voices rang distantly in his ears, yet never seemed quite so close, quite so dangerous.

_ Mama’s boy, faggot, sissy, wuss. _

He snapped.

I_’m not a wuss_ , he thought hazily, tipping his head back as he chugged the drink, ambery liquid dripping anticlimactically down his chin.

“That’s the spirit!” his friend— roommate,  _ acquaintance _ _?_ had yelled, handing him another red solo cup before slipping into the crowd.

Alone and the furthest away from his comfort zone he could ever remember being, Eddie brought the cup to his lips, and started to drink.

* * *

Buzzed by the taste of alcohol and warmed by the slow drip of beer in his system, Eddie relaxed, if only momentarily. 

He let his head lull back against the worn couch, letting his flushed cheek press into the cool leather as he watched the commotion unfold around him, a little woozy, and uncomfortably drunk. With  the abundance of alcohol, can sometimes come an onslaught of anxiety. Eddie, having once had a panic attack after having two drinks in junior year of highschool, should have known that.

And he _would have_, if the man sprawled across the couch had been anything like Eddie. He was hot; dishevelled and reeking of beer. He made stupid decisions like going to frat parties. He forgot to call his mother to tell her he wouldn’t be coming home tonight, even though he  _always_ did.

No, the man on the couch wasn’t Eddie, but as he fled the room gripping his aspirator like a lifeline, he'd never felt more like himself.

He found a quiet, unoccupied corridor of the snaking house, pressing his back clumsily against the cool wall as he wheezed into his inhaler, a series of choked-off, spluttered coughs falling out of his mouth as the familiar taste flooded his mouth.  He couldn’t remember how long he’d stood there, huddled over his inhaler as he tried to rid of the weight on his lungs and the stars on his eyes. He couldn’t place how long it’d been before someone else had walked into the room.

“Party’s the other way, I hate to break it to you, bud,” the man had said, and Eddie’s eyes flung open, his hands covering his trusty blue aspirator protectively.

And then he saw the playful smile on his face.

“I’m trying to get  _away_ from the party,” Eddie explained uselessly, hands rubbing his arms as he sighed shakily.

“Tough break for you then, running into me,” the guy had said, and then slumped opposite to Eddie, as if he hadn’t really meant it at all, “I’m a riot.”

Eddie rolled his eyes at that, muttering, “I’m sure you are,” before pausing, and then lamenting more to himself than the boy at this point, said offhandedly, “can’t a guy have an asthma attack in the middle of a frat party in peace?”

The boy had laughed, Eddie recalled. All teeth and bright sparkle in his hazed-over eyes. 

“No, you really can’t,” he said, grabbing the aspirator out of Eddie’s hand before he could protest, turning it over in his palm, “y’know, people here would think that was a drug if they saw that,” he said honestly.

Eddie just scowled in disgust, and the man handed him back his inhaler, looking at him curiously.

“This isn’t your scene, is it?” he asked, letting his head lazily loll back against the pale wall.

Eddie’s grip had tightened over his inhaler, “No. Frankly, I don’t know what I’m even doing here.”

Of course, all of this was a refined version of whatever was really said, pulling whatever sensical fragments he could out of that slurred, languid drag of words.

“Talkin’ to me,” the guy had said, smiling lazily.

“What?” Eddie had replied dumbly.

“Talkin’ to me,” he continued, “tha’s what you’re doin,’ isn’t it?”

Eddie had looked at him blearily, hair mussed up as he carded a hand through it, temples pulsing, “I don’t know.._.am I?”_

The guy had laughed again, genuine underneath that hazy cloud of booze, “Man, you are  _so_ drunk.”

Eddie had been focusing on trying to make a half-decent comeback to that when the thick smell of weed floated past him, and he looked over to see the guy smoking a blunt,a thin wisp of the smoke filtering out and under his nose.

Eddie inhaled sharply.

_ When had he gotten that? _

“Oh, don’t look so scandalized,” he had scoffed, puffing nonchalantly, “your mom must have been a real hard-ass, huh?”

In that moment, it was like Eddie’s brain was urging him to get out. To find his roommate, thank him for a lovely night, and then get the hell out of here, scrubbing the night’s filth away in an hour-long shower. But he just slumped further against that wall, before saying plainly, “You have no idea.”

The man looked like he did have an idea. Or he didn’t and just didn’t care. Whichever one it was, he didn’t comment on it, simply nudging the smouldering blunt closer to him in offering.

“You want a drag?”

Amazingly, and not by his own volition, as if his body had been taken over by someone else, Eddie found himself reaching for the blunt and bringing it to his lips.

“I’m Matt, by the way.”

“Eddie,” he had murmured back quietly.

All he remembered was his hand falling slowly from his mouth as he handed back the cigar, breathing out a white cloud of smoke, and finally getting a good look at the guy.

_ He had a grin so bright and mischievous it made Eddie want to reach for his fanny-pack, where a tiny First-Aid kit sat. His hair was unruly and dark, eyes just as deep. He didn’t know it at the time, but when the boy tipped his head back and laughed, he looked like the spitting image of— _

Richie, Eddie’s mind floated to. He wondered where Richie was. Of course, he wondered about the other Losers; if Ben and Bev had finally got together, if Bill ever wrote a good ending to his book, if Mike had moved to Florida like he dreamed he would.

But it all came back to Richie. Was he settled back in California, laughing easily into a microphone as he captivated the crowd? He had seemed so upset the last time Eddie saw him, so—

_ Focus, Eddie _ _,_ he chided himself. And like floating into a dream, he let himself remember.

_ He had stared hazily at the boy, squinting as he tried to focus his vision, body feeling limp and entirely not his own. He remembered the stifling warmth between them, the heady smell of marijuana. _

He hadn’t even noticed Matt get closer to him, the unbearable heat getting suffocatingly near as his hand brushed over his cheek.

“Say, what’s a pretty boy like you doing at a party like this?” he murmured, eyes glazed over and lazy

Eddie hadn’t even registered his breath fanning over his own lips until his thumb brushed across his cheekbone, eyes flicking to his lips.

“Wanna ditch this joint?”

And then, as if burned, Eddie had jumped away, stumbling to his feet as he bumped clumsily into the wall, hands thrown protectively in front of him. Beneath that haze of inebriation, his gaze was horrified, he just knew it.

“W-wha—“ he spluttered, breath a tinsely wheeze in his throbbing chest, “what are you doing?”

The boy had just stared back at him, like he knew something Eddie didn’t. Like he knew something about  _Eddie_ that Eddie didn’t.

He remembered fleeing out of the house, pushing carelessly past a mass of hot, drunken bodies as he flung himself into the cool grip of the night.

He had collapsed into the dewy grass, retching drily as his entire body shook, lips trembling as his cheek pulsed, the ghost of the boy’s touch lingering on his cheek. Hot tears stung in his eyes as he sobbed miserably against the ground.

And then, with shaking hands and bleary eyes, he had dialled his mother’s phone number.

Sick, and feeling more ashamed than he’d ever recalled feeling in his life, Eddie cried at the curb, and waited for his mom to bring him home.

* * *

As expected, Mrs. Kaspbrak had thrown a fit. Throughout the entire drive home, she lamented over the atrocious scene, peppering in a prolific arrangement of curses that could make a sailor faint. 

Eddie was hardly listening as he let his head rest against the cool window pane of his mom’s car, the bitter taste of bile coating his tongue as it mingled grossly with the flavour of weed and alcohol.  He felt disgusting, in more ways than one. He could hardly look his mother in the eye as she fawned over him, hot rollers pinned into her hair, nightgown falling familiarly over her large form.

He remembered being forced into bed and given a myriad of pills, all while his mother scolded him—  _scalded_ him, listing all the different horrible diseases he exposed himself to by going to that party.

“You didn’t drink, did you, Eddie? Because you could get liver cirrhosis and die!” she said, listing moralities like she was giving a sermon as she bumbled about the room, fussing over Eddie as she loaded him up with medicine.

She look at him scrutinizingly, and Eddie couldn’t help but cower at the gaze in his hazy field of vision. It pierced through that cloud of uncertainty like a pin to a balloon.

“You didn’t_ kiss_ anyone, did you, Eddie?” she asked suddenly, and Eddie's stomach rolled sickeningly.

He slunk under her oppressive watch, and then, like a dam breaking, he began to cry.

As a look of silent resignation passed over Sonia Kaspbrak’s eyes that night, she placed a washcloth against Eddie’s forehead.

_ Tripping in that haze, floating in that disembodied feeling, Eddie took in a hitching breath and he leaned into that cold press of— _

Water. Eddie’s feet tripped blindly over the pass of shallow concrete, landing face first into the canal. His arm came out to break the fall, and he felt a familiar ache radiate up his shoulder as his old fracture was reacquainted.  He could hear the cicadas burring lowly around him, the lazy splash of the water as it lapped at the shore. He bet that if he turned his head right now, he would see that evening sky above him, littered with stars.

Eddie laughed, and then the world went black.


	16. Chapter Sixteen

_[Sprawled haphazardly atop his bed, Richie Tozier slept a fitful sleep. Grime covered nearly every surface of his body, and he was in desperate need of a shower. As he lay there, Beverly Marsh was just beginning to dial his number, nestled in the taxi cab with the other Losers as they returned to Derry for the very last time.]_

He didn’t wake up at the first ring. In fact, it took three rings for him to be roused from his sleep, and it wasn’t until another three rounds of that before he picked up the phone.

“What?” he said, almost snarling into the receiver.

His entire body ached, heavy with exhaustion, but there existed no pain worse than his splintered heart, a dull weight in his chest.  His hands trembled where they weakly held the phone to his ear. Even as he listened, he felt his eyes droop shut once again.

“Richie,” Beverly said patiently, “I need you to meet us at the Jade of the Orient restaurant...you know, the one we met at before...”

_Before we fought IT,_ the sentence finished in Richie’s head.

_“Us?” _ Richie croaked, sitting up straighter, paying no mind to the head-rush he got as he forced his aching body up.

“They came, Richie,” she said, voice breathy with relief, as if a bowling ball of stress weighing on her for weeks had simply rolled off in that one moment, “they’re all back.”

He waited in bated breath, oxygen a sharp stab in his throat as he swallowed roughly. His throat hurt to no end in that special kind of rawness that came from holding back tears.

He missed her next words in a flurry of bleary thoughts.

“What?” he said dumbly, furiously pushing away the last dredges of fatigue.

“Jade of the Orient. Do you need a ride or can you make it there yourself?”

But Richie hardly heard her, blood roaring in his ears as he fisted a hand in his hair, letting it slip down his face in a rough trail down his cheek. Heat flared in its wake.

“But, Eds—“

“Will you be there?” Beverly interrupted him.

Richie pinched the skin between his eyes between his fingers, letting his shoulders slump from where they were tensed around his face.

“Fine. Yes, I’ll be there.”

Rolling out of bed, Richie scowled in disgust at the filthy trail of grime left behind on the sheets where his soaked clothes had pressed into. It looked akin to those old-timey Sunday cartoons he used to watch as a kid, when the character would faceplant into the ground and leave a person-shaped hole. 

He might have laughed about it once, but all he did was sigh, ripping the covers off the bed and dumping them into the laundry basket.

_ “God-fucking-dammit _ _!_” he muttered before throwing himself under the cold assault of the shower, paying no mind to the way it seared his cool skin, stinging against his frozen cheeks like acid rain.

He scrubbed fervently, until his skin was red and raw, and then he let himself slide down the tiled walls, wrapping his arms tightly around his knees. He bowed his head, as if in prayer, and let the cool water wash away the day’s events.

* * *

_ [A few miles away, the Losers sat around a large rectangular table, picking at their appetizers. In the space between Bill and Beverly sat an empty seat. Richie was nowhere to be found, and his noodles were quickly growing cold.] _

“You think he’s gonna show up?” Bill said, swallowing a bite of lo mein as he wiped his mouth with a white linen napkin.

“Of course he will,” Beverly said, looking hesitant before adding, “it’s _Eddie.”_

Bill bit his lip, remembering that night when everything changed. Well, that was subjective, he supposed— one could argue that the moment that everything _ really_ changed was the moment they all met twenty seven years ago, completing a circle of which they had been entirely unaware of, that would strip Derry down to its bare, rigid bones. But he knew what he meant by the sentiment, and for that, he stood by it fiercely. The moment that their group of six had turned to five, just days after it had been demoted from seven. The cards of the game folding as the scoreboard ran unsettlingly empty, leaving behind a mere shell of what once was.

Yes, he remembered that moment all too clearly. The moment everything had changed.

He recalled helping Ben and Mike drag Richie’s planted form away from Eddie’s lifeless body and away from the sewers, which had begun to crumble above them as the Neibolt House stood on its last legs.

He remembered the screams— the awful, _haunting_ screams as Richie kicked and protested, nails digging into Bill’s shoulder like talons as he cried.

_ Eds, Eddie, no! Guys, please, no, we can still save him! We can still— Eddie! _

He thought he might never get that sound out of his head, because the thing about trauma is that it echoes; pulsing down the years like a cancer until one day you realize you’ve married your own childhood monsters. 

He thought of when he was a child— flying down the broken roads of Derry, racing to beat the Devil, the wind whipping through his body like a belt. Maybe you couldn’t outrun your demons, Bill thought distantly, because maybe if you were still trying to escape your past, you were already stuck in it. I f you were still running from monsters, you were afraid of them. And everyone knows fear is the way they get you, in the end.

_There are things worse than It,_ and this goes way deeper than that,  Bill thought with devout certainty, and then he took another drink.

Mike pursed his lips, chewing absentmindedly on an egg roll, “So, what’s the move here, Bev? How are we gonna find him?”

The rest of the Losers turned to Beverly expectantly, and she swallowed thickly, looking down at her plate before casting her eyes at each one of them in turn.

“I don’t know,” she sighed, “in my visions...it looked like he was still down there in the sewers.”

“Maybe we should check there first then,” Mike concluded, jaw set in loyal determination, always ready to do the right thing, “I mean, that would make the most sense, right?”

“Right,” Beverly echoed, “the sewers...that’s where we left...” her breath hitched, voice cracking as she finished quietly, “where we left him when he died.”

“Jesus Christ,” Mike breathed, pinching the bridge of his nose as he sighed into his hands, scrubbing them over his face.

“H-How can we be sure he’s even alive?” Bill blurted out, as if each individual word was tripping over the next, “What if he’s...what if he’s d-d-duh—“

“He’s  _alive__,_” Beverly said sharply, taking a quick swig of her wine, disregarding the comforting hand that Ben placed on her shoulder.

A thick tension took to the room, the quiet clinking of silverware doing little to break up the suffocating silence that clamped its cold, frigid hand over their throats.

Bill mindlessly raked a fork through his hoisin sauce, avoiding the eyes of the other Losers, who looked just as on-edge. There was just something unnerving about being back in your hometown, and the discomfort in the room was palpable, stiflingly so.

_“He has to be,”_ Beverly whispered, so quiet is was almost lost to their ears. But it wasn’t— they all heard. Easing into the slow silence, they picked up their chopsticks and waited for Richie to arrive.

* * *

By the time Richie arrived at the Jade of the Orient restaurant, the rest of the Losers had relaxed, settling back into their old routine as a pleasant conversation took the reigns of the room.

Ben had an arm slung around Beverly, who eased into it acceptingly, leaning towards him like they were magnets; floating in that bonding force between them.

Bill shot a wide grin at Mike, who returned it just as brightly. Their eyes were turned up at the corners— and a cheerful glimmer threatened to spill over them as their smiles played at their face.

Richie stood at the front of all of this, suddenly feeling like he’d made a grave mistake of coming here.

Just as he was about to say _ ‘fuck it’ _ and leave, they turned to him like a sunflower to the sun. Like the petals of a flower, their faces opened up, sympathy flooding their expression as Richie shoved his hands deeper in his pockets.

He twitched.

And then someone spoke.

“Heyyyy, Trashmouth!” Bill said easily, clearly a little tipsy on the whiskey in front of him.

Richie just bit his lip, reluctantly accepting a seat as Beverly gestured to a spot between her and Bill. They all looked rather good, all things considered. 

Mike was wearing a pale blue dress-shirt, beard clean-shaven and immaculate. His skin glowed from the Floridan climate, teeth and eyes blindingly, healthily white.

Bill looked nice in his navy sweater, the pressed collar of his white shirt peeking out at the neckline, stubble slightly overgrown in that way that told everyone he was an author, the slight dark circles under his eyes only driving the point home.  Ben looked well taken care of, as one would expect from the successful man he was. He wore a grey button-down, cuffed at the forearms as he nursed a beer in one hand, the other resting on Beverly’s lower back. 

Beverly was ethereal as always— red hair falling in soft waves down her shoulders, pinned back with a small gold pin and having grown since the last time they met. She wore a delicate white blouse, trimmed with detail at the neckline.  A small emerald necklace hung daintily between her breasts, a gift from Ben, no doubt, and her eyes of the same colour peered back at him curiously. She looked radiant as ever— pale skin gentle under the light, cheeks flushed with colour.

Her fingers twitched in a gesture Richie recognized as a tic that resonated from the deep desire for a cigarette.

Instinctively, Richie reached for a cigarette from his pocket, cupping his hands around it as he coaxed the end to light before self-consciously rubbing a hand over his face. He knew how he looked.

It was like the original meeting, that first time back in Derry. Ben was hot, Bill and Beverly put-together as always, and then there was Richie, less favoured by the passages of time.

The only difference was now the Losers did little to hide their stares at Richie, and he knew he didn’t look well— in fact, that was the_ reason_ they were all here.

His five-o’clock shadow threatened to crawl down his neck, and his eyes were ringed with ugly bruises that came from the lack of sleep. He had a colourful array of contusions spilling out from under his jacket, having grown from his trip to the sewers. And that was only on the _outside._ His entire body thrummed like a hidden pulse was wriggling under his skin— which managed to hurt too. His legs seared and ached with every shift in his seat, and he felt as though he would slump over and collapse like a rag-doll at any given moment.

Richie puffed a spit of smoke out of the cigarette, his eyes daring anyone to mention the '_no-smoking'_ sign on the wall.

No one did, instead, Ben looked sympathetically at him and said, “How are you doing, Richie?”

He laughed drily, smoke filtering lazily out of the end of the drag and towards the ceiling, “How am _ I_ doing? Look at me, man. I thought Big Bill was the one who had trouble with the ol' peepers.”

He glanced pointedly at the stylish wire-rimmed glasses that lay upturned in front of Bill. Nobody laughed at the joke.

“Huh. Tough crowd,” he babbled, seemingly unable to stop his mouth now that he’d gotten it started, silently willing it to shut up as his words ran away from him. He desperately needed to fill that overwhelming silence. Needed them to stop  looking at him like that; like he was going to break. Because he was one sympathetic look away from losing it completely, and then they would all _know_.

“It’s okay, Richie,” Beverly said softly, and Richie forced himself to relax in his chair. He understood what she meant:

_ Beep beep, Richie. _

“You’re right though, Trashmouth,” Bill said good-naturedly, “I’m bound to go blind with all the time I’ve been spending in front of my computer the past few weeks.”

Beverly turned to him, rapt fascination in her eyes that told you everything you needed to know. The constellation in her eyes may have lead her to Ben, but the first star started with Bill, and still burned just as bright, deep down inside.

“You figure out a good ending for your story yet, Big Bill?”

He chuckled, “Well, to figure out a good ending, I need a beginning first. I’m scrapping the whole project and starting it again.”

“Really?” Ben said, clearly intrigued as he leaned forward. He owned a great deal of Bill’s books, perhaps more than any other of the Losers.

“Yeah, Audra...” he looked conflicted, “she hated that ending.”

He let out a mirthless laugh, and Richie didn’t miss the way he said Audra’s name, as if it stung to speak.

_ Audra. _

He briefly wondered if they’d split.

“What about you, Mike?” he said quickly, obviously attempting to divert the conversation away from the subject of him and his wife, “How’s Florida?”

Mike smiled easily, “Oh, you know how it is. Sunny every day— what a life, huh?”

All the Losers smiled except for Richie, though a warm fondness seeped gently across his chest. They all were happy to see Mike happy. It hadn’t always been so easy for him.

“What about you, Ben?” Mike grinned devilishly.

“And what _about _me?” Ben said humorously, the group dissolving into laughter as they hooted and hollered, jostling Ben’s built shoulders in playful affection.

Richie exhaled from his nose, fingers digging into the white paper of his cigarette. His nostrils flared, eyebrows knitting together, creasing lines through his forehead.

His hand trembled. 

“Oh, you know, he’s just sitting around looking pretty,” Beverly laughed, “that used to be my job!”

“Still is!” Ben said sappily, taking her under his arm, “Boy am I glad I found her—“

Richie’s fists collided harshly with the table, a rigid, searing pain melting over his knuckles as the Losers turned to look at him in shock.

His lip wobbled, legs unsteady beneath him where he stood.  Since when was he standing? His cigarette was burning a brand into his palm. Richie’s entire body trembled as he looked at them, betrayal scrawled across his face like a guilty marker of his _dirty little secret._

“Do any of you even _ care_ about Eddie?” he said, furious, but his resolve crumbled under the insistent assault of tears from a reservoir that never seemed to drain lately.

Hot tears streaked a blazing trail down his cheeks, “Do any of you  care that he’s _ alone _and  _scared_ and you’re standing by while it happens?”

They watched him, speechless, pink shame flushing their faces as their eyes remained glued to Richie’s.

“Do you even  _remember_ what Eddie was like? He would have _hated _being in that place! You  _know_ he would have! And— and—“ he took in a hitching breath, sobs erratic and choked now, “now we’re what? Abandoning him again?”

Nobody dared to interrupt him as he trembled and shook like an epileptic in front of them. Richie seemed to be talking more to himself than them at this point.

“Well, you might be fine with that, but I sure as hell am not! I thought the point of you all coming down here was to help Eddie, not talk about your own lives, because guess what— not _everyone_ got to  fucking _move on!”_

His shoulders heaved up and down as he tried to pull air into his lungs, looking like how Eddie did as a kid when he needed his inhaler. This only made him cry harder and through an onslaught of tears, croaked out:

“Do you know how hard it is? I go home and...” he panted, voice strained, “all I see is that Eddie’s not there. His clothes, his compass,” he touched the chain around his neck pointedly, “...even his _stupid_ inhaler, but...he isn’t.”

Richie’s face was flushed, and his eyes were shameful under the dam of tears bubbling up over them and coursing down his cheeks. He had ripped his heart out of his chest and laid the broken, pulsing mess out for all of them to see. 

The Losers gaped at it. Richie cried harder.

“You may not wanna go back there,” he said, voice wobbling, “but I’ll be  _damned_ if I let him die by himself again.”

Once he found himself able to move away from that horrible paralysis, Richie stormed out of the room, Bill clamping a hand over his shoulder in attempt to stop him. He shook his hand off, practically seething as he yelled, “Do  _not_ fucking touch me!”

“Richie!” Beverly called desperately after him, and he distantly heard them pushing out of their seats.

Richie just ignored those pleading voices, slipping out into that cool, unforgiving night, and running away as fast as he could.

Unbeknownst to Richie as he fled down the desolate roads of Derry, he was leading himself away from the canal, where an unconscious Eddie lay.

Richie ran, and twelve miles away, Eddie twitched in his sleep.


	17. Chapter Seventeen

_[Left side of his face pressed into the rushing water of the canal, Eddie lay unmoving by the bank. His body hurt— even while dreaming, and he was groaning quietly as he did just that. The Losers had just hastily paid the bill at the Jade of the Orient, and Richie was taking off the other way. Sleep weigh heavily on him, and the night was quiet. The same, however, could not be said about the dream plaguing his mind]_

Eddie found himself back in the sewers, the rushing water around him doing nothing to placate the uncanny resemblance his dream took form in. Eddie was cold and scared, and once again, all alone.

He shivered in that dark, dank tunnel, clothes frozen to his skin. Water dripped lowly down the grates of the sewers, stuttering occasionally, and the beat of Eddie’s heart followed suit.  His heart— it felt like a wet, pulsing lump lodged in his throat as he trembled, looking around the room.  Distantly, he heard the sound of running water— different from the pattern he’d gotten used to over his time down there. No, it wasn’t the hesitant, slow drip of run-off sewage he had become acquainted with, but a sound much more sure and steady.

It almost sounded like...

_ Like someone running a bath _ _,_ Eddie thought breathlessly.

He screwed his eyes shut, side of his hand reaching over and brushing the skin of his nose, which was frozen to the touch. His vision swam along to the roar of blood in his ears.

Staggering forward, Eddie followed the noise.

It lead him down the winding, scrawled paths of the sewers, past the side routes and into a small room of the left, roughly the size of a bathroom.  Eddie peered inside, and his breath caught in his chest, bile crawling up his throat as he swallowed thickly, chest heaving in silent terror. 

There, in water the colour of blood, lay a pale looking man slumped over the ceramic rim of the bath, eyes fluttered shut, wrists weeping from large gash wounds.

Eddie trembled, stepping forward, feet wading through the water where it had overrun onto the tiled floor. He peered down at the man, and he froze, paralyzed where his feet stood planted in the ground.

The man’s eyes flew open, water sloshing as he came to, gripping the edges of the bath in a death-grip. A ragged wheeze of a breath ripped through his chest as he looked at Eddie with a mix of terror and shock.

_ Stan _ _,_ Eddie though distantly, before the image faded out.

* * *

_ [Just moments after Richie had stormed out, the Losers had left the Jade of the Orient restaurant, hastily leaving a generous amount of bills on the table before rushing outside, trying to keep up with Richie. The cold air nipped at their skin, and they walked faster through the parking lot, drawing their coats nearer to their chest] _

“This is so awful,” Ben said sombrely, looking a bit like a lost puppy dog, “I hate this.”

“I know,” Beverly said, breathing out into the sharp air, her cheeks cooled by the breeze, “but nobody hates this as much as Richie, believe me.”

“I’m just surprised he stayed in Derry,” Mike said, shivering, “I thought he was like, really big in California. He’s a disc jockey or something, right?”

“Of course he stayed, Mike.”

Mike, having witnessed a full twenty seven years of the horrors the town could bring and having done the duty of staying back in their hometown to keep watch was slow to understand why anyone would willingly stay in Derry.

“I just don’t get it,” Mike sighed, “_It_’s not coming back— we know that for sure now. It’s not like we have to keep w—“

“H-He stayed because he l-luh-loved him,” Bill interrupted.

His voice was quiet, and it seemed to become a catalyst for a continued silence as the Losers shuffled forward, the three of them none the wiser and Mike looking like someone dropped a bomb on him.

“Oh,” was all he said, and that was the last word said before they piled into Bill’s car and pulled out of the parking lot.

Starting towards the canal, they drove off into the night.

* * *

Richie slumped like a cripple as he dragged his feet tiredly across the cracked roads of Derry. He felt like he’d been hit by a bus; all his previous injuries that had receded after a long rest coming back full force. There wasn’t a bone in Richie’s body that didn’t hurt.

He gazed tiredly at the blur of buildings just beyond the road— encapsulating it like a picture frame. He watched the structures pass with little interest, if only to pass the time, if only to distract from the weak tremble of his heart and the pinpricks of heat settling in his joints.  Richie walked, and he didn’t stop until he came across a familiar face; its boarded up windows glaring into his soul like lifeless eyes, the rotted wood barriers sagging as the weeds attempted to drag the dilapidated building back to the weeds, where it would make the earth its grave.

He started towards the building, hands shoved into his pockets as he made his way across the street. He walked that gravel road until he was standing in front of his childhood’s true home;

_ The Derry arcade . _

Loose, rusty nails protruded from the loose planks, teeth marks embedded into the bronzing metal where the claw of a hammer had failed to pull them out. Loose newspapers lay sprawled at the foot of the door, skittering across the sidewalk like travelling gypsies. 

Beneath the window and beneath his feet, broken glass covered the ground, crunching as he slowly sidled up to the building.

Shifting his weight and tentatively grasping the empty frame of the exposed lower window, Richie hauled himself up, ducking as he climbed in through the gap, shattering small bits of broken glass as his feet connected with the floor.  The wood groaned under his feet, like a creature who had been sleeping for years and was unhappy to be woken up. A thick layer of grime coated the walls, dust-bunnies running rampant through the corners of the room.

It was still as beautiful to Richie as it had been the first day it opened. It was just as beautiful as he remembered it being that fateful night.

_It was early July of 1989, just shortly after they had defeated It for the first time. The seemingly endless expanse of summer rolled out before them like an ornate carpet— a sentiment older than time itself._

Richie had been walking Eddie home after the rest of the Losers parted ways, retreating inside for the night.As they passed by the small strip of buildings, Richie came to a screeching halt, Eddie continuing on for a few more steps before turning around with his hands on his hips and sighing, “What?”

Richie had grinned, pointing at the slightly ajar window, cloudy with sticky fingerprints where kids would press their palms against as they peered into the arcade after close. 

“No!” Eddie said firmly, squaring his jaw and shaking his head adamantly, the last rays of the setting sun rippling across his face as he frowned at Richie, crossing his arms across his chest, “No way! It’s closed for a reason, dipshit!”

“Awe, come on, Eds, let loose a little! The night is young!” Richie cajoled, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose.

“You know, if that fucking clown was still alive, this kind of bullshit would have gotten us killed.”

“I’m not hearing a no,” Richie said flippantly, beginning to wiggle the window open.

Eddie frowned at the side of his head not obscured by his thick mass of unruly black curls, “Is that what you tell girls?”

“Only your mom, Eds,” Richie winked, pushing the window all the way open and grinning at him triumphantly.

“Beep beep, Richie,” Eddie muttered, but he moved to stand underneath the window alongside him.

“You’re coming? That’s the spirit!” Richie crowed, and beneath that smug grin, there had been a very real sense of fondness and joy. He smacked Eddie’s fanny playfully, “Well? Get in there, Eds!”

“Don’t call me Eds,” he muttered, before Richie was helping to boost him through the window, slipping through the small opening and into the arcade.

Richie grinned to himself, following with significantly less finesse, clumsily tucking in his long, awkward limbs as he clambered inside, landing on the ground with a triumphant smile.  Eddie was wandering around, peering into the darkness as he scanned the various games. His legs looked almost ghostly pale under those bright red short shorts, and Richie tugged his eyes away.

“Hey, Eds! Look, Street Fighter!”

He ran over the familiar machine, seeing his grinning reflection in the grey screen. Eddie sidled up next to him, squinting at it and scrunching up his nose.

“It’s not even  on, idiot.”

Richie had ducked down so fast he nearly smacked his head against the console as he retrieved a long cord, plugging it in the socket and looking up pointedly at Eddie when the familiar colours loaded onto the screen.

“The wonders of technology, huh, Eds?”

“Oh, shut up,” Eddie had muttered, “how do you even play this game anyway?”

“Prepare to have your world rocked, Eddie Spaghetti,” Richie grinned, and he could have sworn he saw a glimmer of fondness in Eddie’s eyes before he trained his gaze back on the screen.

* * *

Eddie had picked up the game rather quickly, nimble fingers flying over the brightly coloured buttons as he beat up Richie’s character, a determined expression painted over his face.

He smashed his fist down on the blue button, the health meter on Richie’s side depleting to zero, reigning Eddie victorious. 

_“Ha!”_ he yelled, smiling so bright it almost hurt, that blinding sunshine poring through Richie’s eyes, fanning a flame that already burned in Richie’s heart, ravaging him whole, “I won!”

He turned to face Richie in almost slow motion, and he could have sworn there was a ring of white light surrounding him. In that moment, Richie saw no one else.

He gazed at him in wonder, before softly breathing, “Eds?”

Eddie’s proud grin remained plastered across his face, and his eyes twinkled back, “Yeah, Rich?”

Richie bit his lip, wanting nothing more than to reach out into that dim lighting and kiss Eddie Kaspbrak until the sun started to rise again outside. He ached to touch his cheek, stroking a thumb under his eye and breathing,  _Eddie, Eddie, Eds, _until the words had no meaning, until the world ran out of time.

Instead, he said, “Wanna play another round?”

Eddie snorted, fishing another coin out of his pocket as the screen roared to life. Richie had lost again that day, because his eyes kept drifting to the boy beside him, and the way the soft glow of the Street Fighter machine illuminated his face.

_ Richie watched the machine numbly, silently willing it to come to life. He found his eyes squeezing shut, lids heavy under the sudden assault of exhaustion. His body thrummed with a fresh wave of pain as he leaned to kneel down. _

Richie had hardly touched his knees to the filthy ground before his phone rang loudly in his pocket, buzzing insistently against his side. Maybe it was the culmination the past few days’ events that urged him to pick up that phone, or maybe deep down inside, he knew it was important.

Either way, he raised it to his ear and said slowly, “Look, I don’t want to t—“

“Richie,” Beverly said, voice faint, like she might disturb something important if she spoke any louder, “you need to come down to the canal. Right now.”

“Beverly, I don’t want to  talk —“

“Richie,” she said louder, voice rising in panic, speaking faster, as if afraid he would hang up on her, “You need to come down."

Richie frowned at the floor, listening to her shaky breaths as she said:

_ "Richie, you need to come down...because we found Eddie's body." _


	18. Chapter Eighteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After nearly thirty thousand words and seventeen chapters, Richie and Eddie are finally going to be in the same room as each other. I'll admit, I had a few good chucks over a few of you affectionately (albeit annoyedly) referring to my fic as 'the slowest slowburn i've ever read,' but now it's time to give the people what they want.
> 
> Alexa, play Reunited and It Feels So Good.

By the time Richie arrived at the canal, he somehow managed to be in worse shape than he had been before he left. Cool sweat froze against his flank as it beaded steadily from the crook of his arm. His hair was mussed and unruly from carding his fingers through it the entire taxi ride.

Oh yeah, the taxi ride. The words, _‘_ _ Eddie _ _,’_ and _‘_ _ body _ _,’_ and_ ‘_ _ found _ _,’_ had hardly come out of Beverly’s mouth before Richie ran out onto the street, nearly getting hit by a lorry as he flagged down a slow-moving cab, puttering along as if it had nowhere important to be.

_ Well, you do now _ _,_ Richie had thought dizzily, wringing sores into his own palms as he yanked and prodded at his own fingers, clumsily falling into the backseat.

“Where to?” the balding driver had asked rather calmly, sipping from the largest cup of coffee Richie had ever seen.

The sharp, warm smell of dark brew enveloped him like a seductress, and he struggled to keep his eyes open as he leaned into the scent and the emanating warmth of the car.

Richie very nearly snatched the cup out of the man’s plump hands, but decided against it as his stomach rolled uneasily.

“The canal!” Richie said plainly, hissing through his teeth as his fingers brushed over a small wound on his palm.

“Oh, you mean along the Kenduskeag?” the cabbie inquired nonchalantly, clearly in no rush.

Richie could tell he was gearing up for a languid, easy chat about everything and nothing, and stopped the train in its tracks before it derailed.

“Yes, of course the Kenduskeag you idiot! Where the hell else?”

He felt the man raise his eyebrows questioningly in the rearview mirror, but the toll-free number advertised to drunks printed on the car door told Richie he’d been on the receiving end of worse interactions before. He looked more intrigued than anything.

Despite that, the car still idled, and Richie, feeling a little more than desperate and an ugly conglomeration of emotions brewing sickeningly in his stomach, apologized.

“Sorry. I mean, no. I’m not sorry!” he inhaled sharply through his nose, face crumpling up with frustration as he managed:

“I have had the  _worst_ fucking month and I’ve had a _godawful_ day! I’ve been playing phone-tag for the past forty-eight hours, waded through someone else’s piss and shit, and now I’ve gotta go see someone and I’ll be  _damned_ if I miss them again! So please, sir, for the love of  God and Joseph and everything holy— _step on it!”_

The cabbie pursed his lips before appearing to shrug, and then leaned forward into the pedal until they were rolling down the streets of Derry, cutting a blind trail through the night.

Richie’s chest heaved as his breath warbled in his throat. Deep lines cut across his forehead, etching themselves into his skin. He felt as though he had aged ten years in the span of a month, no, scratch that— in the span of a day.  He let his head loll heavily against the window, letting out a dull clunking sound as he relinquished all control over his body. He allowedhis temple to rest on the finger-print clouded window, feeling the low, occasional jolt or rumble of the tires running over a pothole.

The streets were irrefutable cracked. 

Everything in Derry was broken.

With that somber thought, he let his aching eyes shutter shut. Shutter—yes. Like the blinds of a window. Richie had felt uncomfortably exposed all day, baring all his dirty laundry to the whole goddamn world. He was shutting the curtains and he was locking everyone else out for one  fucking second. It was the kind of tired that forced your eyes to not so much as flutter— but rather, slam shut. A dull ache took to the bridge of your nose, resonating in that little junction between your brows. All you wanted to do was shut the world out and retreat into that brooding, whole darkness. That welcome respite of silence. And yet, flashes of light seemed to swim behind your lids, coaxing you into taking everything in until your eyes bled and your vision swam.

_ I think _ _,_ Richie thought to himself,  _ it would be better not to see at all, because then,  he elaborated,  you couldn’t know what you were missing._

_Who_ you were missing.

Still, he gave into that aching, longing pain and let himself dissolve in a memory. Whether he had any control over it and was simply indulging his own hurt or it was as unstoppable as the rolling tides, he just didn’t know.

Nevertheless, he squeezed his eyes shut and let the past take hold of him.

_They had been young , Richie remembered. Just barely cresting onto the awkward, rolling hill that was puberty. Thirteen impeded on the last breath of their closing childhood, the curtain call for naivety maybe, but certainly not for teenage idiocy, which would stay a loyal contender for years to come. _

Changes rolled over the horizon like a bad omen, like a stormcloud gathering force as it shaded over the warm shore. 

Not that any part of their childhood had been comparable to a day at the beach— far from it, but maybe, Richie thought, there always existed some part of you, deep down inside, that made you want to believe that summer could last forever, and the winding paths of the future would be sun-lit and easy.

Summer couldn’t last forever, but it very well seemed like it had that day, that year. The year of 1989. 

As all good things tend to do, that August heat had melted into September breeze— the sun a bronze medallion suspended halfway in the sky, as if it couldn’t be bothered to hang at full-mast. 

School encroached on the warm, comfortable embrace of longer days, and like all kids, Richie wasn’t going to let summer go quietly into the night.

But then again, when had Richie ever done anything quietly?

“I can’t believe summer’s almost over,” Richie groaned, throwing a dramatic hand over his face, as if he were a fainting fair maiden. 

Under any other circumstances, Eddie would have said just that, but it was sure to be retorted back with an unbridled comment about how Eddie should come and save him, which would surely have resulted in a ridiculous request for a saving kiss. He would have declined, obviously. He always did, punching Richie square in the shoulder and giving him one of his patented, ‘shut the fuck up, dickbag’ looks reserved specifically for  the Trashmouth Tozier.

But Eddie’s mom was in the front seat, already casting vengeful eyes back at Richie through the rearview mirror, so he opted not to humour Richie in the way he normally would.

Richie had knocked his glasses askew with a dull, humorous sounding _‘clunk,’_ and Eddie huffed sharply, righting them on his face. 

He did stuff like that sometimes, and sometimes, there was fondness behind those brown eyes, mingling within that exasperated sigh, pinpointed somewhere in his voice as he said,  _ ‘you’re an idiot.’_

It was in those moments that Richie felt his heart twitching in his chest, heat flooding his freckled cheeks in splatters of pink. 

Along with the peril that was puberty came an onslaught of new— no, heightened emotions. Everything just became more pronounced; those gangly limbs of his seeming increasingly clumsy, his trash-mouth growing even trashier, and that flickering heat in the pit of his belly he felt around Eddie growing into this wildfire that seared his insides and pulsed down his groin. Eddie was growing up— maybe not in the obvious ways that Richie was, with that scraggly facial hair starting to wisp across his face, or his clumsily deepening voice, but a change was happening. He had grown maybe half an inch taller and increasingly bold at that.

His mother’s incessant helicopter-parenting seemed to hardly faze him anymore, hardly humouring her with a half-hearted,_ '_ _I’m fine, Ma,' _ when he even responded at all.

Freckles had started to lightly dust his nose, skin warm and tan from the sun spilling across it all summer down by the quarry. The most noticeable change, however, was the soft brown curls that had started to appear at the ends of Eddie’s hair.

Richie had hardly noticed the change, until he did. And then it was  _all_ he seemed to be able to notice.

It did nothing to placate the ache in Richie’s lower gut, or the tug at his heart whenever Eddie was around. If anything, it had worsened it— boiling his insides until he was nothing but a heated mess of raging hormones with a trash-mouth and a boner.  He spared a glance at the boy beside him, yellow shirt tucked into those horrible red short-shorts he always wore. He looked away guiltily. 

Richie adjusted his glasses himself, needlessly, and looked at Eddie with a trained gaze as he huffed out a response.

“Do you really want to stay in that summer any longer?” Eddie inquired, sounding genuinely curious as he cast a glance at Richie, “Don’t you want a change?”

_A change? _ Richie remembered thinking.  _I don’t know if I could handle any more change, Eds. I think I’d be perfectly happy floating in this fucked-up limbo of a summer if I only got to immortalize your bitchy comebacks and the way the sun glints off your eyes forever._

Sure, there exists no memories without a future to hold them in, but a future meant an eventual end—an end Richie wasn’t ready to face. He had looked into the cruel, unforgiving eyes of fear itself, and still found himself trembling in the face of the passage of time.  If _It_ had really wanted to scare Richie, he should have played upon that fear; the undeniable fact that time was passing Richie by and the world would turn around and leave him there, forever stuck in the past.

But then again, how could you personify such a thing?

If It had really wanted to scare him, all he had to do was conjure up a reality in which Eddie ceased to be within reach. In which Eddie, too, had grown tired of Richie ‘Trashmouth’ Tozier.

_I don’t want  us to change, Eds, _ the words formed on his tongue.

Instead, he said, “Well I’m sure gonna miss those short skirts Greta Bowie wears,” whistling lowly.

He got a firm slap to his arm from Eddie, his wild eyes imploring and livid as he bored a hole through the side of Richie’s face. 

Richie smiled.

Mrs. Kaspbrak gasped.

“Eddie!” she screeched, swivelling her head around briefly before returning her gaze to the carpool lane, fat hands strangling the worn leather of the steering wheel, “This is why you can’t hang around this Tozier boy!”

_ Such a bad influence _ _,_ her words rang in the air, and,  _ he will be finding his own ride to school if he keeps that up._

“And don’t tell me you’ve been looking up girls’ skirts, Eddie!” she continued, fuming.

Richie bit back a laugh at the thought of prude little Eddie Kaspbrak trying to sneak a peek up Greta Bowie’s tartan kilts. Eds could never be a Peeping Tom—the sound of his aspirator shooting down his mouth would ring out, giving him away immediately like a blazing red sign reading, '_VIRGIN.' _

Mrs. Kaspbrak was giving Eddie’s nerve more credibility than Richie or anyone who actually  knew Eddie ever would, and maybe that’s what caused Eddie to simply relax into his seat, fingers wrapping around Richie’s forearm.

Richie had looked at him with flushed cheeks, nervously knocking his glasses back up the bridge of his nose, trying to meet Eddie’s gaze. But he had simply sat there, watching the horizon.

_ For once in his life, Richie was speechless. _

He pushed the last tangled arms of that memory away as the car began to slow down, his head rising instinctively away from the window as he fumbled for his seatbelt.

When the canal finally came into view, Richie hardly waited for the cab to roll to a stop before he was fleeing the backseat, stumbling ungracefully onto the tarmac. He fisted a hand in his pocket and pulled out a few crumpled dollar bills and a stray cigarette, placing them into the fat hands of the taxi driver.

On a second thought, he plucked the smoke from the cabbie’s clammy palms, shoving it haphazardly in his mouth, muttering, “I’ll take that.”

The driver just gave him one last curious glance and a nod before speeding away, Richie skidding down the lopsided hill where the gravel met the water, sending a line of small jagged rocks skittering down below.  He nursed that white paper cigarette in his mouth, clumsily fumbling with his lighter as the match protested against the cool air of the night.

But it was all in vain, because it dropped in a nosedive from his lips as soon as he saw the crouched figures huddling around a body half-submerged in the canal.

_ Eddie _ _,_ Richie thought breathlessly.

He staggered forward, time seeming to slow down as his pulse twitched weakly under his skin. Blood swam inside his ears and distantly, he could hear a faint sort of ringing. The air weighed thickly on his legs, paralyzing him like sandbags as he moved closer.

All he could think was,  _ oh my God, please let him be alive. Please, Eds, please be alive, please let him be alive._

He fell to his knees at the edge of the river, between Bill and Mike, who were looking solemnly down at him as they pumped his chest with overlayed hands, eyes glassy and frozen.

“Eds!” Richie cried out, pushing past their hands, gripping Eddie’s drenched sweater in his hands, shaking him, “Is he okay, guys, is he  okay?”

“W-We found him l-like this,” Bill explained, gently trying to push Richie’s hands away, “Richie, he swallowed a lot of water, he was almost face-down in the canal.”

Richie hardly heard him, clamping onto Eddie’s limp body more insistently, hovering over him as his glasses threatened to fall of his nose,_ “Eds!”_ he yelled, tugging at the chest of his shirt, “C’mon, Eds, wake up, Eds, wake up!”

_“Richie!”_ Bill barked suddenly, startling him and the rest of the Losers. Even Bill looked taken aback, but he maintained his steely resolve as he ordered, “G-G-Give him some space!”

Richie was about to argue back when he felt Ben yank him up and away with a surprisingly strong grip on the back of his shirt. 

“What the fuck, man?” he snarled, his outstretched hands smacked away as he was thrown upright.

“I know you’re upset, Richie, but you need to calm down! They’re trying to _ help_ Eddie!” Beverly said, voice wavering in all its ferocity. 

On the ground, Bill was furiously beating Eddie’s chest, barely keeping count of the compressions now as his movements grew more frantic. Richie tore his eyes away from the sight and directed them back at Beverly.  Her eyes glimmered with tears and her expression told Richie they had been trying to do just that for a while. Richie’s eyes blazed, bruised fists clenching as he stepped towards Beverly.

“Calm  _down?”_ he repeated hotly, “Do you even  _know _what I’ve been through the past few weeks?”

Above the deafening roar of blood flooding his ears, Richie could hear the loud, dull clunking sound of Bill slamming his hand down on Eddie’s chest, sobbing quietly as he stuttered, _“C-Cuh-Come on, Eddie! Come on, man!”_

Richie pointed an accusatory finger at Eddie, hand shaking as his face crumpled up, tears spilling hotly over his cheeks, “He’s practically_ dead!_ You told me—“

_“I know what I told you!”_ she wailed, the scream echoing in the empty quarry.

“Guys—“ Bill said quietly, but Richie ignored him, blinded by anger and frustration bleeding red through his eyes, through his ears, and mingling in his saliva like snake venom. His words bit. His words seared.

“Well, I guess you were wrong, Bevvie, because guess what? He’s  _dead!”_

“G-G-Guys!” Bill shouted over them, rousing the attention of the Losers. 

“H-He’s, he’s—“

Eddie took a big gasping breath, eyes flying open as he attempted to sit up, hands clambering to grip on something, which were quickly pinned down by Bill.

_“Eddie,”_ Richie breathed, running over to him and falling to his knees.

The rough gravel ripped through the faded knees of his jeans like a knife, slicing the skin underneath in red, shallow lines. Richie ignored the bloom of heat and gripped onto Eddie’s shoulders, staring down at his wide-eyed face.  His head rested in Bill’s lap, and he blinked blearily up at Richie, dirt streaking the side of his face, blood dripping steadily from his lower lip, where the skin was cracked and peeling. 

His skin was clammy and fucking filthy, his clothes were half drowned in canal water, and he honestly looked like death. 

But there, in that moment, and as he would always remember it years down the line, he had never recalled seeing anything more beautiful.

_“Eds__,”_ he said hoarsely, hand coming up to cradle the side of his neck, under which a warm pulse was throbbing against Richie’s palm.  His eyes nearly fluttered shut at the comforting, familiar rhythm. Unconsciously, Richie felt his own heart slow down to match it. He had Eddie in his arms. 

_ Everything was going to be okay. _

He looked to see where his hand had snuck up the side of his cheek, thumb stroking over his jawline in a subconscious act he might have the gall to feel ashamed about later. But in that moment, all he could feel was relief, and the euphoric recognition that  _Eddie is here. Eddie is alive. Eddie is in my arms._

He thought back to the first time he had touched him like this—that day in the Neibolt house, that fateful summer.

Pennywise had clambered towards them, razor sharp claws protruding from the fleshy talons that made up his pale hands. Saliva dripping animalistically from his maw, puddling on the broken floorboards of the dilapidated house. Eyes trained directly on Eddie, looking as if he was going to sink those rotted teeth straight into his warm, pulsing heart. Richie ran in front of the very injured, screaming Eddie. He had cupped his face, feeling the hot breath of It fanning over the back of his neck, but he hadn’t cared. All he could think was,  _Eddie is hurt, Eddie is scared, and Eddie is going to die._

_“Eddie! Look at me, Eddie!”_ he had yelled, grasping his face between his hands.

Richie tried to block out that memory entirely— some things were too horrific to try to remember. And in the process of lugging that baggage back up to the surface, you were bound to knock over something solid, fracturing that fragile sense of reality you kept in a glass jar, locked away in the deepest part of your mind.

But he remembered the fear— the awful, paralyzing fear on Eddie’s face, mouth agape with silent horror, eyes screaming a mute plea as he clambered to hold onto Richie. 

From where it hovered above Eddie, Richie’s face bore the same terror as Eddie’s had that day. He felt something roll off his chest— a boulder he hadn’t even been fully aware he had carrying, and from underneath that weight resurfaced a kind of dizzying fondness that scared Richie more than anything. He looked down at Eddie’s bruised, bloodied face, so weak and yet so fucking  _strong_. He remembered how cold, how callous the world had been without him those past few weeks. He remembered that splintering _ache_ — that pain in his heart that was beginning to slowly ebb away as he held him in his arms.

Eddie’s brown eyes glimmered in their sockets, and in that moment, all Richie could see was the boy he had been in love with since before he could even comprehend what love _was. _

Richie leaned in closer, heart threatening to burst out of his chest as he gazed down at Eddie’s face, more terrified now than he had ever been in his life. His gaze flicked down to Eddie’s lips. Eddie looked up at him, looking thoughtful, and not protesting to the way Richie’s breath was now fanning over his face. He steadied an arm against the ground and—

Eddie shot up, panicked, looking Richie directly in the eye, “I’m going to hurl,” he stated, before keeling over to Bill’s right and spitting up a murky conglomeration of mucus and canal water. 

The rest of the Losers recoiled, but Richie just smiled fondly at Eddie, smacking him on the back as his lip wobbled, chasing away droplets of water from his chin as he wiped a sleeve over his mouth.

“Aw, Eds. You look cute even when you hurl,” Richie said in that teasing way that was so familiar to the both of them.

And when Eddie groaned, rolling his eyes, the ghost of an exasperated smile playing over his lips, Richie knew it for sure:

_ Everything was going to be okay. _

He pinched Eddie’s cheek affectionately, crowing a light-hearted, “Cute, cute,  _cute!”_

Eddie just shook his head, looking as vindictive as he could through his heavy-lidded eyes, body slumping over with sleep.

Richie couldn’t help it— he gathered Eddie in a bone-crushing hug, and felt his heart sear in his chest as Eddie swung his arms around him, leaning pliantly into his touch like a rag-doll. Whether he was just plain exhausted or craved the overwhelming closeness Richie did, he didn’t know. But he couldn’t bring himself to care as he buried his face in his neck.

He twitched, and then planted a wet, smacking kiss against his grimy cheek, grinning from ear to ear.

“That is  _so_ unsanitary, Trashmouth ,” Eddie mumbled.

And then he passed out.


	19. Chapter Nineteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys! Sorry for the longer wait on the recent chapters- since it's a big turning point in the story and my point of view opportunities have narrowed considerably given the chain of events, it takes a bit more planning to make effective chapters. Plus I'm a student and high school is kicking my ass big time, so kudos to that. 
> 
> I want the post-reunion scenes to be perfect because of the huge build up, so I'm being more thoughtful when writing the chapters currently. What are some scenes you'd like to see between recently reunited Richie and Eddie? Suggest your ideas (NSFW or SFW) in the comments and who know- it might just make it into the story. ;)
> 
> Enjoy this next chapter!

_ [About twelve feet underground the shattered roads of Derry sat Stanley Uris. He was pallid and weak, far too weak to pull himself out of the blood-stained bath. He waited in bated breath. He wouldn’t be waiting for long] _

Eddie sat slumped in the backseat, head lolling back against Richie’s shoulder. Faint, wispy breaths puffed out of his nose and a small opening of his mouth occasionally. His shirt soaked a red stain onto the fabric of the seat, where an old wound was still reeling. His palms were cracked and caked with dirt, thin red slash marks grazing his palm in a way that looked as though it would sting- raw and singed into the pale expanse of white. His lips were dry, peeling at the skin, looking severely dehydrated, like a man crawling through the desert for weeks in search of water. His glassy eyes were pulled shut by his heavy lids.

Richie hadn’t taken his eyes off of him for a second since they pulled his body from the canal.

It was a task that should have been easy— Eddie, though grown up now, was still rather small and seven people were more than enough to lift him. The problem, however, wasn’t that there weren’t enough hands to help, but that Richie was dead-set on his being the _only_ ones that came near Eddie.

“G-G-Guys! He’s lost consciousness again. That’s not good!” Bill insisted, watching as Eddie went limp in his lap. 

Beverly watched the shallow movement of his chest, “I think he’s going to be alright,” she said, “but we need to get to a hospital.  Now .”

Mike fumbled with his keys, the metal ring clinking against his palm as he brandished it, nodding towards his car.

“We need to lift him,” Bill instructed, and the Losers quickly moved to place their hands under his shins, around his shoulders, and under his knees.

“Wait!” Richie protested, lifting him up by his arms and hauling his lower torso into his lap. His chin rested atop Eddie’s head and he held him close, like how a child might clutch a teddy bear after a nightmare, “Let me carry him.”

Bill shook his head, hands coming to rest on Eddie’s flank as he went to take him back, “Nu-uh. You’re in almost as bad shape as he is, Richie. Let us do it.”

His nostrils flared, grimacing a kind of self-entitled snarl, feeling Eddie’s soft hair tickle his pulse point. He tried not to lean in.

“I’m fine! Just— let me do this!”

Richie didn’t wait for further confirmation before wobbling upright, holding Eddie in a paltry, clumsy version of a bridal carry. Sweat crested at his forehead, arms clearly strained from his exertion.  Eddie was by no means heavy, but Richie was by no means in the proper condition to be holding anything upright. Even his head lolled, body drooping at the weight of the night.

“Richie,” Bill said softly, placing a hand on his shoulder. His eyes were gentle, and Richie melted, remembering the man in front of them as the leader that had saved their lives dozens of times, “d-d-do you trust me?”

_ Yes _ _,_ Richie thought quietly.

He gave in, too tired to put up a fight, muscles pleading for a respite, if only for a brief moment. His gaze softened, and he let Bill gently take him from his arms, Eddie’s cheek plastered against his shirt.  Bill nodded, patting Richie on the back.  He kept his eyes glued to Eddie the entire walk to Mike’s car. Softly, Beverly took his hand, thumb brushing over his knuckles, squeezing his palm comfortingly:  _ a truce._

The car came into view— after all, the Losers had hastily parked it just above the canal as they raced down the Kenduskeag, so it wasn’t far at all. By the way Richie’s knees were buckling, he couldn’t help but feel silently grateful for that fact.  As he looked at the pale moonlight glinting off the silver exterior of Mike’s car, Richie felt himself slipping into a memory again. With each exhausted loll of his head and every passing second he spent in Derry, it felt like he was sinking further and further into his past.

Some memories were best left forgotten. Fortunately, this one was kind.

_ When Bill had first gotten his license the summer of 1992, it very quickly became the unofficially designated hangout spot. Much like the clubhouse, the Barrens, or the Quarry had, Bill’s dad’s beat up sedan had taken on a kind of uncanny importance in the budding adolescence of the Losers. _

The car not only courted them, but the last remaining dredges of their childhood as they grew older, and subsequently, apart. That car had seen some of the last conversations between the Losers, and witnessed the closing of that powerful circle that connected them all and would never be whole again. It had courted them to the tail-end of their childhood like a white knight, from the blue to the black, the unknown to the  _solitary _unknown. And that in itself made it a truly powerful thing indeed.

But it hadn’t always seemed like a bittersweet omen.

Richie distinctly remembered barrelling down that same path as the one he trudged along now, listless energy spilling over like a sparking livewire as his limbs barely stood to contain the twitchy restlessness that plagued Richie’s body like a disease.

_“Shotgun!”_ he yelled into the blue sky, head tilted back in a kind of gleeful worship. His glasses knocked against his nose. He grinned.

“No fair!” Eddie huffed, slinking into the backseat, right behind Bill, “You _ always_ call shotgun, Richie.”

“Sorry, Eds my boy,” he had replied, putting his feet up on the dash before Bill promptly pushed them down, “don’t hate the player, hate the game.”

“I just hate _you,_” Eddie had responded.

“You can’t do that, Eds. Have you even been listening to a single word I said?”

“Sometimes, Richie, I wish that I didn’t,” he sighed, tone petulant and bitchy.

And Richie just smiled, popping an _AC/DC_ cassette into the player. When the car started rolling, he glanced back at Eddie, who had met his gaze, sticking out his tongue. Richie laughed and reclined back in his seat with his heart a warm weight in his chest. 

_ He remembered that, he had always called, he had always called— _

—Shotgun?” he heard Bill chuckle, looking pointedly at him as the stood at the front of the car.

“Huh?” Richie said intelligently.

“I said,” Bill smiled, stutter vanquished from his voice like a sour relative at a family reunion, “aren’t you going to call shotgun?”

His eyes were curious, imploring, almost as if prodding him to ask,  _do you remember, Richie? Do you remember how easy it had been? Flying down those crackled roads of Derry like the Devil was out to beat us and laughing like it didn’t really matter? Do you? Do you?_

Richie nodded to himself,  _ I do, Big Bill, I remember, I remember things I wish I wasn’t remembering and oh God, Big Bill, my heart is a gaping wound in my chest right now. Funny how the world works out, huh? You always knew what to do, Big Bill, but I think I’m alone in this one, I really think I do._

“I’ll sit in the back with Eds,” he said finally, though it had only come a beat after Bill had asked, and rather quickly to the rest of the Losers.

But Richie’s world was moving like legs against the tide, heavy and dragging and getting nowhere fast. The world was lolling along like a lazy wave, a slow drip IV into his veins, into his system as he watched it with bleary eyes. He was a testament to time, a Polaroid perfectly capturing his past and where he stood now, in the crosshairs of it all. Richie was a man of everything and nothing, all at once.

Bill laid him across Richie’s lap, waiting for Richie to buckle up before letting Eddie lay slumped against his chest, handing him over as if he were something fragile. 

Richie took one look at Eddie’s doped-out face, _you are everything_, he thought in a breathless sort of realization. 

It didn’t come with a bang, and the world didn’t even so much as tremble beneath his feet as the words passed through his mind like a wandering pedestrian. It was no grand revelation complete with blaring sirens and chiming bells like Richie had always thought it would.  It just came and then it was gone, almost lost in that slow cosmos of thunder and the stronger, overriding thought:

_ I want my Eddie and I want to be out of here. _

Mike glanced at him in the rearview mirror, eyes probing Richie for some kind of quiet reassurance. For the go-ahead. Beside him sat Bill, Ben having taken his own car, and Beverly nestled on the other side of Eddie, succumbing to the seductive brush of sleep.  Richie nodded curtly, feeling his own exhaustion weigh heavily on him, but not daring to shut his eyes even for a moment, in fear that he would open them to an Eddie-less world, once again.

Mike turned the key in the ignition and pulled out of the parking lot, taking to the night in a sleepy lull as they drove towards the blinding whiteness of the emergency room. In his lap, Eddie twitched, and all Richie could think was:

_ Please, God, let this night end okay. _

The stars provided no answers, nor did the breeze as it ruffled his hair, whispering into his ears. He leaned his head atop of Eddie’s and let himself rest for the first time in weeks.


	20. Chapter Twenty

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy (Canadian) Thanksgiving everyone! I am overwhelmed with the amount of love and support I've received for this fic and just wanted to take a moment to sincerely thank each and every one of you for taking the time to read, love, and cherish my work. I see each and every kind comment you leave and it fills my heart with endless amounts of joy and gratitude, and for that, I cannot thank you enough.
> 
> I hope this almost four-thousand word chapter serves as a token of appreciation for you all, and stay tuned, because this story is just beginning.

The next few hours went by in a blur of blinding white, firm hands, and the irrefutable drag of the night. They had hardly so much as stepped through those heavy double-doors before Eddie was being whisked away on a stretcher, practically pried from Bill’s strong arms, where he passionately bled out onto his shirt.  He was barely clinging to consciousness, head lolling back, eyes fluttering occasionally as he mumbled nonsensical bits of phrases.

_Like he was having a conversation with himself, _ Richie recalled with a shudder.

Nurses had manhandled him away, their grip seeming to burn purple-red bruises onto his pallid skin, strapping him tightly into that cot as they wheeled him down the endless spans of linoleum hallways that twisted and winded in serpentine paths, each one more hopeless. He outwardly convulsed as Eddie was taken into a room, the door slammed shut behind him, disappearing from view.  He remembered feeling faint, the soft edges of the world melting through his eyes, where sharp daggers of exhaustion staked themselves through, punishing that pale vampirism that tugged at his legs and settled in the black pools growing beneath his sunken eyes. 

He distantly recalled a strong hand gripping his forearm, tethering him to whatever aimless floe of reality swum in his crowded mind. Bill— he thought, he felt it in that sure touch. That silent strength. The firm, _“You’re alright, Trashmouth. Take a seat.”_

Then someone had perched in front of him, crouching on that scuffed white tile floor, peering softly up at him. A hand on his knee, warm and gentle. He caught sight of a dainty wedding ring winking in the dim light of the hospital, and drew his bleary eyes up to see Beverly.

“He’s going to be okay, Richie, alright?” 

He tried to nod. He wasn’t sure if he did, head heavy as rocks on his aching neck, feeling both painfully within himself and impossibly away. The world swam around him, but didn’t mingle with the rapids coursing through his mind.  He let his focus shift to her face for a moment. Her eyes were buried under a light bruising of exhaustion like the rest of the Losers, and a thin coating of smudged mascara. Her lips were drawn into a small smile— tired, but so genuine. Her auburn hair fell softly around her face, slightly mussed from where she had raked her fingers through it moments before.

He reached for her hand, splaying it over the one resting on the knee of his jeans, and she sat there with him a moment before gently rising to her feet, pressing a soft kiss against his forehead and joining Ben in the row of chairs adjacent to where Richie sat.  Mike was fiddling with his golden sheriff’s badge, looking quietly pensive as he waited for Bill to return, who was somewhere in the winding corridors talking to his publisher in a hushed, tense tones over the phone. 

The underlying medicinal smell of the hospital mingled languidly in Richie’s nostrils as he took in a mindless sharp inhale through his nose. The night staff looked bored, the secretary’s face illuminated by the soft glow of the computer. Through her gold-rimmed glasses, Richie thought he could see the dim reflection of Solitaire playing across the screen.  All was stiflingly silent, except for the low, sticky click of computer keys and the occasional sound of shoe soles rubbing against the polished floors as nurses made their nightly rounds, peering into rooms and doing various odd-jobs that would turn the stomachs of any ordinary pedestrian. 

Richie’s stomach lurched pointedly when he thought about what they must be doing to Eddie— poking and prodding at those weeping wounds. Blood— there had been so much  _ blood. _

He remembered how it had caked his palms, staining them an ugly faded pink as it crusted over his skin and dug itself under his fingernails, settling around his cuticles. It had taken a full week to wash out, and idly, when Richie looked down, he sometimes felt as though he could still see that endless sea of red washing over him like a suffocating tide. 

_ He couldn’t have been bleeding out that entire time in the sewers _ _,_ Richie thought distantly, he would have been utterly drained. So the bleeding must have stopped at one point then, which left the unnerving question:

_ Why did the wounds start bleeding freshly once he staggered back into the open arms of Derry? Why was he even alive at all? _

Richie was no Stan by any means; while he, like everyone else, had a relatively firm set of beliefs when it came to reality and its limitations, had always been rather complacent in accepting the trivial discrepancies of it all. That had only seemed to intensify after the first battle with It, and there it lingered like mildew on a window.  Some people, like Stan or Ben spent half their lives trying to fit life’s incongruities into their perceived reality. Tried to bend and shape it to abide by the laws they had created; what was possible and what was not. 

Richie never felt so compelled to do so. They had stared into the cold, dead eyes of It, faced the rotting, horrible stink in the dark that most people wouldn’t even dream of. This was something that couldn’t be reasoned away.

Stan had tried to, at least. But look where that ended him.

Richie took in a sharp breath, clumsily rising to his feet and dizzily clambering towards the heavy metal doors of the hospital. He needed a fucking smoke.

He navigated past the sleeping forms of Beverly, Ben and Mike, stepping out into that cool night air and settling himself down on a curb a few feet away, nearly folding up under the sheer amount of effort it took to pull himself to the ground.

His body screamed for sleep. His mind churned on, uncaring. 

Being in that hospital for Eddie, Richie remarked to himself, must feel just as well as if he were coming back home. He had spent most of his childhood here after all, getting loaded up with a cocktail of drugs and his own mother’s overbearing, suffocating imitation of love.  He remembered the day Eddie had broken his arm that day in the Neibolt house. He’d never forget the silent scream that had ripped its way through his weak lungs as he lay in a heap of collapsed wood and plaster, arm sticking out sorely in a sickeningly unnatural angle.

He’d never forget the raw fear in Eddie’s eyes that day, the way it had done nothing to lessen even as Richie held him in his arms.  They had faced It by themselves long before that, but that moment was the first time Richie could remember feeling completely and utterly helpless.

He remembered yelling hazily to Eddie that he was going to snap the bone back into place, fingers trembling where they ghosted over his forearm. He remembered Eddie staring horrified into his eyes, such raw conviction in them as his lips curled into an indignant snarl.

_“Do  not fucking touch me!”_

He remembered hearing similar words from Pennywise,  _don’t touch the other boys, Richie, or they’ll know your secret._

And maybe that’s what compelled him to yank his arm as hard as he could that day, popping the bone into place with a sickening crunch. 

He’d never forget the way Eddie was whisked away by his mother, tears sopping through his skin as he was roughly escorted into the passenger seat, eyes the picture of shattered, face the portrait of horror. How Richie had reached out for him, and the way Eddie just turned away, watching the horizon through a blur of tears as his mom drove him away.  He remembered the fight that had ensued between the Losers directly after. He remembered the sting of Bill’s punch, the grate of his words. 

_“Eddie almost died!”_ he remembered yelling, brows creasing an angry narrative across his face, fists lunging towards Bill. 

He remembered storming off, hot, angry tears coursing paths down his dirt-streaked cheeks. He remembered wheeling his bike beside him as he numbly walked to his house, storming past the cool presence of those distant parents, throwing himself under the assault of the shower, sobbing into the streams of water until he was wrung of any palpable emotion apart from shame.

Shame— it never seemed to run out. It lingered, festered, mutated in the pit of your stomach like acid, crawling up your throat in the form of unsaid confessions and angry outbursts that spewed out like bile. 

Shame, you never truly out-run it. Just assign it different names, different faces. Push it deeper into the dark crevices of your heart where it withers and rots like a weed. But at the end of the day, when the sun goes down and you crawl into those cool, empty sheets, it waits for you, wraps its frigid arms around you like a second skin and seduces you with memories you wish you could forget, people you wish you hadn’t loved.

Richie knew shame all too well.

_But that’s not where the memory ends,_ a little voice in his head nagged as he breathed out into the cool air,  _because that wasn’t the last time you saw Eddie Kaspbrak in those two weeks. You hadn’t stayed away, remember, Richie? Remember? _

“Of course I remember,” he spat out, wrapping his arms tightly around him, squeezing around his torso like a constrictor.

It had been three days after Eddie was admitted into the hospital, far longer than necessary for something as minor as a broken arm, but Mrs. Kaspbrak was devout in her ministrations. She prayed through every pill she fed him and gave sermons through every _‘_ _ don’t do that Eddie.’ _

Mrs. Kaspbrak was the red-faced, heavy-handed voice of God in Eddie’s life, and maybe that thought was what had pushed Richie past the doors of his house that day and to the outskirts of Derry General Hospital.

It was coming to him clearer now, like the image shifting into focus at the eye doctors.

_ Is this one clearer Richie? Can you see it now? One or two, Richie, can you see? _

_Yes_, Richie thought, _I can see, I remember how— _

_ Richie had thrown rocks at the window that summer day. He thanked God that Eddie had been given a floor-level room, but expected nothing less from Mrs. Kaspbrak, who was certain a spontaneous fire might break out at any given moment, trapping her and her son in its scalding embrace of death. _

After the third dull _‘_ _ clunk _ _,’_ Eddie had tentatively slid the window open. Clumsily at that, his cast an unforgiving and awkward weight on his arm.

Richie dropped the fourth stone he had gathered with a dull ‘thud’, grinning widely as he sauntered towards the window, peering at Eddie’s pinched looking face behind his thick glasses as he gazed scrutinizingly at him. 

“What the fuck are you doing here? ”  he whispered harshly, nervously glancing at the door beside him, as if expecting his mother to barge through any minute now and yank him back inside.

“Well, hello to you to, Eds. Parting is such sweet sorrow, etcetera, etcetera,” Richie yapped, but his resolve faltered slightly at the displeased look on Eddie’s face. He briefly wondered if he made a mistake coming here. 

“Beep beep, Richie,” Eddie sighed, rubbing his good hand over his face like an over-tired child, which was exactly what he was.

“Mrs. K in there?”

“Do you think you’d be alive right now if she was?” Eddie shot back.

“Good point, Eds. Pretty chuckalicious if you ask me. Hey, did that fall in the Neibolt house knock your funny-bone into place?”

Eddie breathed out an unbelieving wisp of a laugh before moving to close the window, _“_ _ Goodbye _ , Richie.”

“Wait,” Richie interjected a bit desperately, “let me in, please?”

“What?” Eddie said, looking as if Richie had just suggested they join a travelling circus.

“I just want to talk.”

Eddie worried at his bottom lip, casting another nervous glance at the door before reluctantly sliding the window completely ajar, looking back at Richie with narrowed eyes, “Fine. But if my mom catches you—“

Richie, already sliding in with a shit-eating grin landed on the white floors with a triumphant sound, “Don’t you worry your cute little head, Spaghetti, Mrs. K has a real soft spot for me.”

“That’s not what she said to me,” Eddie grumbled, crossing his arms firmly over his chest, wincing as he disturbed his fracture.

“Well, you should have heard her last night. It was all, _‘Oh, Richie! Don’t stop! Oh—“_

_“Richie!”_ Eddie squeaked condemningly, throwing his good hand over his mouth.

Richie licked his palm, instantly causing Eddie to recoil, wiping it on his shirt with a horrified look, giving Richie’s infamous Trashmouth a platform to quip, and quip it did.

“That’s right, Eds. Now you’re getting it!”

Eddie settled down beside him on the bed with a terse little pout, “You know, you really are a turd sometimes, Richie,” he looked sideways at him before adding, “and don’t call me Eds.”

“I know,” he sighed, ignoring that last part, “Big Bill’s giving me a real run for my money, I’ll tell you that, Eds. Bastard decked me, can you believe it?”

“He punched you?” Eddie said suddenly, good hand coming up to softly touch the faint bruising under Richie’s eye, “Oh my God, he did.”

Richie tried not to notice the way his heart threatened to beat out of his chest or the way a furious blush bloomed beneath his cheek as Eddie’s fingers grazed gently under his eye. 

Richie did what he did best: deflect.

“Yeah, gave me the ol’ one two. Woulda punched back but I had a date with your mom to get to.”

Eddie pulled his hand away, rolling his eyes, and Richie could breathe again, ignoring the way the touch ghosted over his skin and the empty feeling gnawing at the pit of his stomach where butterflies once swam.

“You’re impossible.”

“I know,” Richie said, letting his eyes wander. They lit up immediately as he spotted a bright red Sharpie on the small corner table. He hoisted himself off the cot before returning with a wide grin, uncapping it with the zeal of a madman.

“What are you doing with that?” Eddie frowned.

“Signing your cast, of course!” he crowed, making grabby hands for Eddie’s wounded arm, which he held away from him defensively.

“No way! My mom will notice if you sign your name, and then she’ll know you were here!”

“I guess I just won’t sign my name then, huh, Eds?” he grinned, and reluctantly, Eddie held out his arm, “If you draw a dick, Richie, I _swear—“_

Richie opened his mouth to quip back, but the joke died in his throat as he caught sight of the crudely scrawled_ ‘_ _ Loser _ _’_ obstructing the cast.

“Oh yeah, Greta Bowie had a good laugh over that one,” Eddie sighed, “my mom had a bird.”

Richie felt his heart drop, a searing, dead weight at his feet. Eddie held a nonchalant air about him, but his eyes revealed the quiet kind of misery he felt inside. Richie’s stomach lurched, he wanted to tell Eddie that he wasn’t a loser, not to him, but he couldn’t find the words through a tumble of emotions flooding his veins.

“How’d she even do that?” Richie said, gesturing vaguely, “I thought Mrs. K had you cooped up in here all week.”

“Nah,” Eddie said, “she couldn’t convince the doctors to let me stay more than a night for a broken bone. I’m just here for a routine check-up, which is why you should  _go—“_

Richie ignored the gentle push his friend administered to his arm, and the flighty gaze that had seemed to come over him. Eddie was very obviously just as uncomfortable about the mention of Greta’s cruel trick as he was about the prospect of his mother walking in.

“Hold on,” he insisted, taking Eddie’s arm into his lap, where he began to scratch a clumsy ‘V’ over the protruding black ‘S.’

Eddie watched him like the hawks Stan so loved to watch in the park.

“‘Lover?’” he asked, looking mildly amused as he inspected Richie’s handiwork.

_“I’m a lover, not a fighter,”_ Richie began to croon off-key, laughing as Eddie started to push him towards the open window.

_ He could still be heard chuckling to himself as he rolled onto the grass below, and as Richie turned his head to take one more look at Eddie, he could have sworn he saw him smile. _

As Richie came out of the memory, his need for a smoke grew violent. He grumbled, nursing a too-dry cigarette in the crook of his mouth as he waged war with a lighter that wouldn’t light.

“Fuck,” he muttered, hardly hearing the sound of footfalls as they approached him.

“Need a light?” a voice asked.

Richie chuckled drily, making room for Beverly to sit down beside him. True to her word, she produced a small packet of matches from her pocket, striking one and pressing the smoldering end to the butt of the drag.

“Thanks,” Richie slurred around the cigarette and the overpowering need for sleep.

“Don’t think it was out of the goodness of my heart, Trashmouth,” she said, plucking it from his mouth and taking a long drag herself.

It stilled between her two fingers, a thin wisp of smoke twisting up towards the night sky, and they exchanged a glance before falling into soft, easy laughter.

Richie smiled, despite himself, “How would ol’ Haystack feel about you smoking up with the Trashmouth at this hour?”

She bumped his shoulder, handing him back the cigarette, shivering in the slight breeze as the smoke started to relax her tightly-wound body.

“I quit,” she stated, looking at him, “but I’ve had a hell of a night, I think I deserve this.”

Richie chuckled softly to himself, pursing his lips as he inhaled a lungful of the bitter air, “Yeah, you’re right about that.”

A still, comfortable silence came over them, and they watched the stars in a motionless gaze for a few minutes. But then again, Richie had never been able to be quiet for long.

“I never used to smoke, you know,” Richie said, and he wondered why it felt more like a confession than a fact. 

By the way Beverly turned her head to gaze at his face, the observance was clearly mutual. 

Richie pushed on,  _ no backing out of it now, I suppose._

“Never liked the taste,” he tried, pausing. “Only ever did it to piss off Eds.”

Beverly looked at him curiously, and he watched the dark line of trees over the highway, ignoring her imploring gaze on the side of his face, continuing.

“God, it used to piss him off so much. I used to think it was because of the asthma, you know? But I don’t think that was it. I think, maybe,” his voice quieted, almost shyly, “maybe that was Eds’ way of showing he cared.”

He braved a glance at Beverly, before deciding her thoughtful gaze was too much to handle right now, averting his eyes once again as he zeroed in on the weakening column of smoke twisting from the end of his neglected cigarette.

“I mean, his mom...that’s how she loved him, wasn’t it? Loaded him up with pills and told him all the different ways he could get hurt. It was like...by telling him all the ways he could die, it was like her telling him she cared enough that he lived.”

If Richie had turned his head at that moment, he might have caught onto the fond, knowing look Beverly was regarding him with. But he didn’t, and took her silence as rejection.

“I don’t know,” he dismissed, sniffing and casting his head upwards, avoiding her gaze, “I guess I just liked doing stupid things so he would tell me not to, so....”

“So you would know he cared?” Beverly asked gently, and Richie nodded mutely, stubbing out the cigarette against the pavement with his foot.

There was so much that could be said from that sentiment, those simple words, that simple nod a confession in itself. But Beverly just placed a hand on his shoulder, Richie suspecting this only affirmed what she already suspected.

“It’s fuckin’ impossible to sleep in those chairs,” he muttered, rubbing a hand over his face, palm scratching the five o-clock shadow forming on his chin.

“It’s impossible to sleep at all. Every time I close my eyes, it’s like...” Richie looked hauntedly over the horizon, “it’s like I’m watching him die over and over again.”

Beverly looked at him sympathetically, palm rubbing a soft circle over his back, “Well, I don’t know how much I can do about the chair situation, but I think, if you wanted, we could arrange to sneak you into Eddie’s room.”

Richie looked doubtfully at her, eyebrows raised as much as his tired face would allow, “Isn’t that against hospital protocols?”

“Oh, for sure,” she said, “I’ve never known you to be stickler for rules though, Trashmouth.”

When Richie only huffed out a laugh in response, she continued, “Mike’s the sheriff, you know. He could pull some strings, just say the word.”

Richie looked sidelong at her for a moment, eyes softening slightly under her genuine gaze. She patted his back, pressing a small keycard firmly into his hand, closing his fingers around it.  With another squeeze, she was gone, shoes clacking against the sidewalk as she made her way inside. After a few minutes, Richie brought himself to his feet, and if anyone noticed the way he slipped into Eddie’s room that night, they didn’t say a word.

Taking one look at Eddie’s sleeping form, nestled beneath a blanket, he pressed a gentle kiss to his forehead before slumping into the chair opposite to him, submitting to the desperate clutches of his own exhaustion and letting himself fall into a dreamless sleep.


	21. Chapter Twenty One

_ [Eddie Kaspbrak lay stiff as a board, light as a feather, nestled under the scratchy industrial sheets of Derry General Hospital. A fluffier, well-loved blue blanket brushes against his cheek softly. In his sleep, he hums approvingly, leaning in closer. A few feet away, Richie sat slumped into a paltry imitation of a loveseat, fraying fabric drooping towards the white linoleum floor. The rest of the Losers were out getting coffee, and would join the two in the room soon enough, but for that moment, they were alone in their silence.] _

_ Beep, beep, beep. _

The machine hooked up to Eddie’s arm trilled, indicating the bag attached to his IV was due to be changed. He frowned in his sleep, wincing as he disturbed the tight bandaging wrapped around his torso.

_ Beep, beep, beep— _

_ —Beep, Richie!” _

The year was 1989, the Losers sprawled across the carpet of Richie’s room like ragdolls, empty candy wrappers littering the floor, only half of them originating from that night.

“Fucking disgusting," Eddie said just a moment ago, nose scrunching up as he followed in a chastening tone,  “I wouldn’t be surprised if there were ants in here.”

“The only aunt in here was yours last week, Eds,”  Richie had replied with a certain kind of effortless nonchalance patented by the Great Trashmouth Tozier. 

“That’s fucking disgusting,” Eddie hissed, glaring daggers at him from where he sat on the carpet, amidst a particularly impressive hoard of candy wrappers,  “they’re attracted to sticky things you know, ants.”

Richie’s eyes went wide behind his stupid coke-bottle glasses, looking like a mime reject working for spare change,  “Oh shit, you don’t think they got to the _Playboy_ magazines under my bed then, right?”

It took Eddie a moment to get the innuendo, but as soon as he did he was jumping to his feet, tackling Richie to the floor.

The rest of the Losers failed to stifle laughter, Stan muttering,  _“Oh my God,” _ as Eddie clumsily reached for Richie’s arms, trying and failing to pin them to the ground, half-straddling him with a leg swung haphazardly over his lap. He didn’t really know what his aim was, only that Richie didn’t know how to shut his fucking mouth and Eddie needed to do something about it. He half-heartedly threw closed fists at his shoulder, frowning as he kicked uselessly at his legs.

_“Beep beep,_ Richie!”

Richie grabbed his arms, pinning them above his head, locking eyes with Eddie for one pulse-stuttering moment. Eddie could have sworn his dark playful eyes had him in a trance, their faces inches apart as he beamed down at him like the sun, each individual freckle across his face visible as he practically breathed into Eddie’s mouth. 

And then he planted a disgusting, wet raspberry right at the side of his neck, Richie’s glasses careening off his face as Eddie kicked him off, flushing bright red and clutching his now-damp cheek.

“You are  _so_ gonna pay for that, Tozier!”

Richie, clearly feeling brave, laughed wholeheartedly and did weird _‘woogity woogity’_ hand gestures, “Oh, I’m so scared! Little Eds is gonna get a stepstool and fight me like a man! I can hardly believe my eyes!”

Eddie’s face twisted into an expression of sheer indignant rage seemingly reserved for Richie, “I’ll have you know I’m exactly the expected height for my age, asshole! You’re just giant!”

Richie, who was verging on the bend of six feet at only fourteen, only laughed, wiggling his eyebrows before saying, “You wanna know what else is giant—“

“FINISH THAT SENTENCE, I DARE YOU!” Eddie yelled, rounding on Richie, who jumped on the bed and cowered behind Stan, using him as a sort of human shield.

“Protect me, Stan! He’s gonna kill me!” Richie howled, hands roaming over Stan’s chest, face buried in the back of his shirt.

Stan just rolled his eyes, pushing him off and tumbling across the bed, “Good, then maybe we could finally get some fucking peace and quiet around here for once.”

Richie gasped, the sound choked and cut-off as Eddie straddled him, digging his fingers into his ribs,.

“Was that a swear word, Staniel? How would your mother feel, boy?  _Ah, ah_ say, your mother will be heartbroken, boyo!”

Stan just rolled his eyes, sending Mike his patented, _‘__can you believe this shit?’ _ look, which Mike returned with a soft smile and a shake of his head.

“Mercy, mercy!” Richie pleaded as Eddie mercilessly tickled him, kicking his legs clumsily as he slunk further off the bed.

Eddie just slapped his arm, frowning disapprovingly. But he let up, collapsing on top of Richie’s chest, who looked at him curiously, wiggling his eyebrows.

“Shut up, dickwad,” he warned, hovering his hands threatening over his exposed stomach.

He opened his mouth to say something, but at that moment, Beverly walked in with her hair in hot rollers, a magazine in hand. Bill was close in tow, and the Losers realized with unbelieving laughter that he too, was wearing rollers, and eyeshadow by the looks of it.

“The f-fuh-fuck did I m-muh-miss?” he frowned.

And then they dissolved into laughter. Eddie would never forget the way Richie’s chest heaved under him, or the way he looked as his eyes sparkled up at Eddie’s, that shit-eating grin plastered across his face.  He would never have admitted that, of course, especially not the day after The Great Sleepover of 1989, when Richie had drawn a moustache across his face with permanent marker while he slept.

_ “ Shhh _ _,”_ he remembered Richie hissing as he stirred in his sleep, _“_ _ guys, be quiet, I think he’s—_

—waking up.”

Eddie mumbled, blinking heavily as he chased the last remnants of his dream away, groaning at the bright light beaming down at him.

His eyes glared blearily at his surroundings, squinting at the various figures circled around the room. He made out the serene face of Mike, Beverly’s sparkling grin, and then zeroed in on the stupid, stupid face of Richie ‘Trashmouth’ Tozier.

“Morning,  Sleeping Beauty ,” he snickered, as if reading Eddie’s mind.

Eddie groaned, throwing his good arm over his face, opening one eye and staring accusatorially at Richie, “Fuck _off_, Trashmouth.”

Richie looked undeterred. In fact, he looked almost egged on as he grinned at him, wiggling his eyebrows as he shoved his hand into his pocket, rocking on his feet with the same kind of nervous energy Eddie and grown to tolerate— and, God help him,  _love,_ over the years.

“Still not a morning person, huh, Eds?”

“No,” he spat back, drifting back to the memory he had just been reacquainted with, “because _someone_ liked to do weird shit to me while I slept. I’d be surprised if I  didn’t have a dick drawn across my forehead right now.”

Richie stared at him fondly, and he stepped forward, looking as though he was going to say something important. Eddie’s heart twitched in his chest, and he watched with wide eyes as Richie kneeled beside his bed.

“I would never do that, Eds,” he said softly, “not when you’re so vulnerable and weak.”

He took Eddie’s hand, and Eddie knew, he just  knew with a furious kind of introspection that his face was flaming with a kind of stubborn feverish heat he couldn’t even blame on the gaping wound in his side.

He stroked a thumb over his wrist, looking deep into his eyes, “I didn’t draw a dick on your forehead, Eds,” he leaned in closer, “I drew your mom’s vagina.”

Eddie pushed him away, face scrunching up in a way that sent a dull ache through his still-healing cheek, the Losers’ laughter echoing through the room. Richie’s, he noted, as always, was the loudest.  He tried not to stare as Richie grinned up at him from the floor, eyes twinkling behind those stupid glasses of his.  He almost didn’t notice the nurse walk in, cocking an eyebrow at him and then Richie, and then the rest of the Losers in turn before settling her gaze at Mike.

“I thought I told you one visitor at a time only, Mr. Hanlon.”

“Oh, there is no _way_ that’s hospital policy,” Richie rolled his eyes, “Eddie spent practically half his childhood in here and I’m sure his mom counts as at  _least_ two people.” 

“Shut _ up,_ _”_ Eddie hissed at him, Richie winking in return.

The nurse looked curiously between the two of them and the exchange, before Mike drew her attention back, clearing her throat, “Actually, we were just heading out.”

“Mhm,” she said, shooting him a skeptical glance, “and is Buddy Holly staying here with Mr. Kaspbrak or did he wander in off the streets?”

“Buddy Holly isn’t going anywhere, thank you very much,” Richie scoffed, frowning at a snickering Eddie before lolling his head back to look at the nurse, who was stepping over him, “you should stay for the show. I hear it’ll be a riot. Everybody loves_ 'Richie Tozier’s All Dead Rockshow!'”_

The nurse glanced at his theatrical hand gestures, unimpressed, “It’ll be a hard pass from me, I’m just here to change Eddie’s IV bags so he doesn’t go rogue on us,” she glanced at Eddie, and then back at Richie, “but it seems like your friend here is just begging to hear it.”

“Real funny,” Eddie frowned, glaring past the nurse and directly into Richie’s lenses, “forcing me to listen to your bullshit as I lay here, _dying.”_

“Oh, you’re not going to _die,”_ she said chipperly, hooking the IV back into his arm in one fluid motion, securing a fresh bandage over it and stepping towards the door.

“Lucky me,” Eddie grumbled.

But by the way Richie beamed up at him, he couldn’t help but feel like he really _was_ the luckiest man on earth. He dismissed the thought with a burn in his cheeks, and fortunately was distracted from it when he saw Mike, Ben, Bev, and Bill turn to leave.

“You’re going?” he asked, trying to sit up, wincing at the pain in his side.

“You heard the woman,” Mike shrugged, grinning charmingly at him. His sheriff’s badge winked back, and Eddie cast a nervous glance at Richie.

“What, you’re just going to leave me here with him alone?”

“T-T-Trashmouth will go easy on you, Eddie,” Bill grinned, looking at the man crouched on the ground, “isn’t that right, Richie?”

Richie just shrugged, peering up at Eddie over his coffee cup. Wait—  _coffee cup?_

“You fuckheads got _coffee_ and didn’t even get some for me?” Eddiefrowned.

Now that he realized this little fact, he could hardly process anything else but the overwhelming smell of dark brew, groaning lowly as he leaned back against his pillow.

“Doctor’s orders,” Mike shrugged.

“Is that all you can say now?” Eddie bitched, “I liked you better when you were talking about playing cards with some old ladies in Florida.”

Richie crowed with joy, clapping his hands together, “Nice one, Eds! Real chuckalicious if I’m being honest!”

“What, I nearly die and suddenly you start talking like you’re thirteen again?” Eddie shot back, ignoring the flutter in his heart. It was probably a side effect of being stabbed through the chest with a giant, monstrous spider claw, but it’s not like you could  _Google _ that shit.

“Hate to break it to you, Eddie,” Bill shrugged, “but Richie’s been speaking like he’s thirteen for the past twenty seven years.”

“Oh and you’re one to talk?” Richie scoffed, “remind me, Big Bill, who thrusts his fists against the p-p-posts again?”

_“Richie!”_ Eddie and Beverly chided him in unison.

Bill just laughed, shaking his head, “I guess we didn’t call you Trashmouth for nothing.”

“All I know is that I’m gonna get out of here before he starts taking jabs at _me,_” Mike chuckled, starting for the door.

“Me too,” Ben echoed, grabbing Beverly’s hand with one of his own and twisting the doorknob with the other.

“Wait up, Ben,” Richie called, “I haven’t gotten to seduce your ass into bed and make _sweet, sweet_ love to you yet!”

“You couldn’t land me in your  _dreams__,_ Tozier.”

“I’m goin’ back to Florida!” Mike laughed, walking through the door.

“Bring me back an alligator!” Richie hooted, “I hear they’re in season this time of year!”

The door shut closed behind them, and Richie turned to regard Eddie with a court jester’s grin.

“I don’t wanna hear a  _word_ from you, Buddy Holly.”

Richie beamed at him, and Eddie’s eyes went wide, shaking his head and firmly saying, “Richie,  _no.”_

_“So if we ever part and I leave you, you sit and hold me and you tell me boldly that some day, well I’ll be blue,”_ Richie crooned off-key, slipping into a register Eddie thought only dogs were capable of hearing.

He buried his face in his hands, peering at Richie through the gaps in his fingers and muttering, _“God,_ I hate you.”

“You love me,” Richie teased.

_God help me,_ Eddie thought, staring into his sparkling eyes, _I think I do._

Instead he said, “You fucking asshole. Taunting me with your stupid coffee when you know I can’t have any.”

Richie rolled his eyes, grinning, “Well  _sue me_ for wanting to keep our little Eddie Spaghetti safe.”

Eddie just frowned, and Richie sighed, standing up and offering him the cup, “If you die, I’ll never forgive you.”

“I know.”

Eddie made grabby hands for the coffee, but Richie just shook his head, placing the rim of the cup against his bottom lip.  He let Richie give him a small sip, moaning gratefully as he felt his nerves spark alive from the warm rush of caffeine.

“You know this is so bad for you and the nurse is totally gonna yell at me later, right?”

“I know.”

“And you know this probably has my backwash in it and you just slurped in millions of Trashmouth germs?”

Eddie rounded on him, glaring up at his dumb face with as much anger as he could possibly muster with Richie’s face so close to his, his hand grazing his lips.

“You know I could still kick your ass and am contemplating doing that right now, right?”

Richie looked down at him fondly, a smile twitching at his lips, “I know.”

_ God, I hate your dumb face and your idiotic voice and I hate the way you look at me, Richie, because it makes me feel things that hurt my heart and dizzy my mind, and you never shut up is the problem _ , Eddie thought.

Instead he said, “Your hair looks like shit.”

It was true— it was matted to his forehead greasily in a way that told Eddie he hadn’t gone home to shower since last night, unlike the rest of the Losers who looked mildly less atrocious. His normally soft curls were limp and tangled in the stale air, and Eddie furiously fought back the urge to rake his fingers through it. 

Richie just laughed, “Well, I’m _sorry_, Eds. Not all of us got a spongebath from the hot nurse like you did.”

Eddie flushed. He should have known he wouldn’t have been left covered in grime, but he never stopped to think about exactly _how_ he had ended up in bed squeaky clean. The thought of being naked in front of a stranger sent shivers up his spine.

“You haven’t heard the word ‘bath’ in your life, Richie,” Eddie mumbled, pulling the fabric of his nightgown closer to his chest as he made a paltry attempt to cross his arms.

“I’ve given your mother  plenty of spongebaths,” Richie said, winking, “it’s not pretty work, but hell if it doesn’t pay well.”

_“Beep beep,_ Richie!” Eddie interjected, glaring at him, “You’re going to set off my fucking heart monitor.”

Richie followed his eyes to the machine wheeled beside his bed, a steady green line trailing up and down the display screen. He smirked, stepping closer to Eddie.

“Oh my, this could be fun.”

“Whatever you’re thinking,” Eddie warned, “don’t.”

But Richie didn’t listen, because of course he didn’t. He stalked towards the bed, a mischievous twinkle in his eye, the devil cackling on his shoulder and his mouth twisted into that stupid self-satisfied grin.

_Why are you smiling so much?_ Eddie wanted to ask, _ it has been the worst fucking week, and I’ve got a hole in my face._

Apparently, he said it out loud too, because Richie was grinning, “I’ve always got something to smile about when I’m with you, Spaghetti.”

Eddie ignored the way his cheeks flushed hotly, or the way his stomach fluttered like a tuning rod, or the small peak flying across the heart monitor’s screen out of the corner of his eye.

“I’ll wipe that smile right off your face, Trashmouth,” he managed, bottom lip stiffening in an action he hoped his faltering resolve would follow, "and don't call me that."

“Sure you will, Eds,” Richie smiled.

“And don’t call me Eds,” he added, ignoring the way his breath hitched. He needed his fucking inhaler, “You know I always hated that.”

“Mmm,” Richie said, tilting his head, as if contemplating it, “I don’t think you do though. You wanna know what I think?”

Richie’s hand fell over Eddie’s own, and he tried not to think about the way it practically dwarfed his or the way his fingers twitched to lace between those of his childhood best friend.

“No,” Eddie said, noting the steady spike on the screen and praying to God Richie didn’t see it.

“I think you secretly like it,” Richie murmured, eyes boring into his own, face mere inches apart from Eddie’s, and holy  _fuck_ — was that his breath ghosting over his lips?

_“I think you like it when I call you Eds,”_ Richie practically whispered, and that was the proverbial straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back.

As if on cue, Eddie’s heart monitor started beeping loud and insistently like a wailing child.

_Way to fucking narc me out,_ Eddie bitched to it telepathically, _God, I fucking hate this place._

For a minute, Richie just stared at him, eyes flicking between his heaving chest and his wide eyes and then down to their now-intertwined hands. Eddie yanked his palm away from Richie. Richie fucking beamed down at him, “I  knew it!”

“You gave me fucking coffee, dickwad,” Eddie said weakly, still in a daze and wondering why he desperately wanted to lean back into Richie’s warm touch so much that it almost hurt, “I hate it when you call me Eds.”

“I know,” Richie said, smiling, finding his hand again and squeezing it tight.

Eddie looked into his sparkling eyes, searching for something he couldn’t quite place. Before he could figure out if he even found it, he was speaking again, unaware he had even opened his mouth. He didn't know what he wanted to say or what he would have said if he could have gotten the words out of his drugged-out mind and through his mouth fast enough. But then again, he felt as though he wouldn't be saying whatever he was going to say if he wasn't drugged up in the first place, which was the problem. All he knew was that it started with Richie's name, and so he started there, nearly melting in the familiarity, and yet anguished by the overwhelming feeling that he was stepping into unknown territory.

_“Richie —“_

And that’s when the nurses came in, shooing Richie off the bed as they adjusted the machines hooked up to Eddie, poking and prodding and fussing over him as they examined his vitals. 

He briefly caught Richie winking and grinning back at him before leaving the room. Eddie slumped back into his bed, heart thrumming in his chest and mind racing even faster.

_ What the hell was that all about? _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some pure Losers Club fluff before I torture you guys again. ;)
> 
> Also Eddie is so fucking whipped for Richie. <3


	22. Chapter Twenty Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoy this next chapter! Those who have read the book, let me know what cheeky references you spotted in this chapter, there's a lot! We're moving into a huge Stan-the-man plotline, what do you think is going to happen? Let me know your predictions and thoughts in the comments below, I'd love to hear your ideas!
> 
> And, as always, thank you for reading, and enjoy these last moments of calm before we really get into it ;)

Richie Tozier wasn’t even out of the hospital before he was nursing a new cigarette between his teeth. 

He grit down on the dry paper, mouth tacky with that special kind of dehydration that came in the early hours of the morning when the world was still bleary and you were floating in that warm state of semi-consciousness.  His eyelids remained at half-mast as he shook off the final remnants of sleep, tongue faintly throbbing from the burn of hot coffee. No tardier than the first step outside of that white, stale building had he fumbled for his lighter, pressing the flame to the end of the cigarette and inhaling gratefully, eyes fluttering shut.

He hummed contentedly around the drag, making his way over to his red Mustang, blazing in the morning sun. Mike had drove it over from Richie’s house sometime early this morning on the Losers’ coffee run, and he was silently appreciative for that. The rest of the Losers had gone back to the townhouses, presumably to grab something to eat and take a fucking _shower._

Richie dipped his head slightly, grimacing at the musk that emanated off of him and his clothes. He would shower  _sometime_ today, he decided, just not now. 

He rubbed the fob key between his pointer and thumb, the car beeping gently as he unlocked it, clumsily clambering into the driver’s seat.

_ I really should have picked a bigger car _ _,_ he thought distantly as he huffed against the leather seats, closing his eyes as a wisp of smoke filtered up from the cigarette nursed between his lips.

He blindly reached over to shut the door. Fuck it, if Eddie’s four hundred pound mother could squeeze her fat, negligent ass into that Vista Cruiser, Richie could do this.

He laughed drily around the cigarette, pulling the car out of the crowded parking lot, rolling up beside the ticket console. 

_ “ Fuck _ _,”_ he muttered, fishing his credit card out of his pocket, feeding it into the expectant gaping mouth of the machine, which beeped approvingly, spitting out a ticket stub that Richie yanked out with a roll of his eyes.

The green lights blinked at him like eyes, as if deciding if Richie was worthy to let go. It reminded him of those Sphinxes Ben was always going on about as kids, those desert creatures that stood guard. Ben said they could eat you if you got their riddle wrong, Richie wasn’t so sure.

_ “How is a lump of sand going to eat a person? Use your head, Haystack, and lay off those Twinkies, I think they’re killing your braincells.” _

The road block lifted, and no sooner had the blazing yellow rod left the ground before Richie was barrelling through, probably etching a nasty scratch on the car’s red paint, but none of it really mattering. All that mattered was that he was out of that suffocating hospital, and by the time he rolled onto the open streets, sunlight pouring through the open window, he felt himself breathing for the first time in hours.

It wasn’t that Richie  wanted to be away from Eddie. Quite the opposite actually, and  that was the problem. Once he had Eddie back, it was like all he wanted to do was look at him, touch him, feel that warm pulse thrumming beneath his skin and watch those eyes as they rolled at his jokes through his own, gazing past a layer of brimming tears. 

He just wanted to breathe Eddie in, make a home right in that junction between his beating heart and his weakened lungs. He wanted to lay across his body, feeling the lull of vibrations radiate and echo through the emptiest parts of his chest as he laughed. As Eddie laughed, that’s all Richie ever wanted.  He remembered, remembered it so clearly it seemed disrespectful to question if it really happened at all. He would become stupid— of course, any boy falling in love with another boy in a small town of people who can’t help but talk was by definition, incredibly stupid as it was. But Richie played it up.

He would sneak cigarettes out of his dad’s back pocket and smoke them clumsily, tilting his head towards the sun. And the pads of his fingers would ache with burns at the end of the day, but it was all worth it to see the brown-haired boy laugh.

_“You’re so stupid,”_ he would chide him,_ “__you’re going to make yourself sick.”_

But there was no real heat behind his words, that was all melting against Richie’s cheeks as he flushed scarlet red, pulling him under his arm and revelling in the soft touch of skin against skin as he pretended, just for a moment, that Eddie was his.  Because the world was cruel and frowned upon boys like Richie, boys who too often found themselves staring just a little too long at curly-haired boys in arcades or the way their best friend looked in the light.

The ground hated boys like Richie, weeds pulling at his legs and tripping him up as if to pull him six feet under, burying him right alongside the ugly, rotted heart of Derry, to be forgotten and ignored. The wind whispered taunts as he ran home from Eddie’s, a grin plastered across his face and skin buzzing where Eddie’s hand had brushed against his own.

_Fag, fairy, sissy little gay boy, _ the wind taunted in his ears. The air carried the sound of Henry Bowers’ battle cries as he drove his sharpened slew of insults into Richie’s chest like a dagger, and that was proof enough that the world didn’t smile down on boys who loved their best friends just a little too much.

But sometimes, while traipsing through the overgrown brush of the Barrens, the setting sun would beam down across Eddie’s face, bathing his pale skin in a soft golden light. His dark eyes would melt to pools of amber, and the spray of freckles across his nose would look like stars from where they dotted his flushed cheeks.  And Richie knew that the sun smiled down on boys like him as he watched Eddie gaze sidelong at him, his mouth quirking into a quiet kind of smile.

And maybe, just maybe, that was enough.

But things had changed. They were no longer thirteen year olds drawn impossibly close together by shared trauma. The wounds had never healed, but maybe they found their surrogates somewhere else. Some pains never heal, just get masked by less imposing faces that would greet you every night when you crawled into bed alone, at the mercy of your past and the things that lurk in the dark.

Richie found the same kind of resigned comfort in the amber liquid at the bottom of his shot glass as Eddie did staring into the cruel, manipulative eyes of his wife.

And when Eddie was well enough to stand, Richie had no doubts that that’s where he would be retreating. Not because Eddie was weak, no, not by any standards, but because Richie understood the seductive ways of the past and the way it so often seduced you into building your grave inside your childhood fears.  You would always have a home in your earliest traumas, and it would call to bring you home every night. When an old friend calls, it’s hard not to pick up the phone, and it’s oh so easy to return back to what’s familiar, what you know for certain in an uncertain world.

But maybe Richie was just projecting onto Eddie. Maybe he_ did_ love his wife in all her matronly, dowdy glory. Maybe he liked driving a desk for a living and coming home through a blur of windshield wipers cutting across the horizon as he lulled himself to sleep with pills for sicknesses he didn’t really have.  Maybe he just wanted to imagine that Eddie was only leaving out of obligation, because it was easier to accept that he was running away from Derry rather than willingly running towards something that wasn’t Richie.

Stalled in early morning traffic, Richie groaned and hit his head against the steering wheel a few times, setting off his car horn with a long, obnoxious ‘ _ honkkkkk.’ _

The car behind him beeped back angrily, the sound like a foghorn breaking through the air. Richie stuck his head out the window, craning his neck to get a good look at the driver.

“Oh yeah, real mature!” he yelled.

The car honked again, and he realized that the cars in front of him were now puttering along the road, nearly disappearing from sight.

“Fuck,” Richie cussed, stepping on the gas and flying down the gravel roads of Derry.

Without even knowing it, he lead himself to the pulsing heart of his childhood, and stepping out of the car, he began the trek.

* * *

Richie swatted past the long grasses, ignoring the way they slashed red scratches across his skin as he ambled further into the Barrens. 

If it was barren back then, it certainly wasn’t now; weeds clambered over every surface of the ground, uncut grass protruding from the earth like stalagmites, or like the broken shards of glass buried in the cool dirt.  Distantly, he heard the faint gurgling of the sewers, the exit tunnel just a few feet away, sending rapids of water tripping over the rocks and towards the Canal, which was only about half a mile away.

He spared a glance at the murky darkness, remembering how dank and dark it had been, wading through that black water, his joints ticking like a clock as each following breath was punched out of him with every step.  He remembered seeing Eddie’s drenched, unmoving body sprawled across the shore like a ragdoll, all in a tangle of limbs and aquatic plants that had wrapped themselves around his legs and arms. He cast one look at the sewers and snarled:

“Fuck you.”

He hurried along the water’s edge, letting himself be dwarfed by the monstrous trees, that didn’t seem so much as though they lived in the sky, but enclosed it. 

Like a snowglobe, Richie wondered, if someone were to disturb the natural balance of things, would everything come tumbling down?

He followed the line of trees until he was utterly surrounded by them, until the sky disappeared from sight. Pale sunlight pored through the gaps in the trees, and Richie watched it, particles drifting through the air like they were caught in the Deadlights.  With a shudder, Richie fell to his knees, hands raking through the earth as he unveiled the rusting hatch of the Clubhouse, pulling himself down the rungs until he was landing on the floor, sending a cloud of dust billowing around him as he coughed drily, waving it away.  He walked around, shoes clicking softly under him, mingling with the groan of the old floorboards as they strained against the passages of time. He let his fingers dance across the posters tacked on the walls, slumping down on the cheap plywood floors, holding the corrugated tin where Stan had stashed their showercaps.

_ “For the use of the Losers only _ _,”_ Richie read, eyebrows drawn and knitted close together.

He missed Stan.

His eyes fell upon a tangled strip of beige fabric strung from two wooden posts in the middle of the room. Seemingly by their own volition, his legs walked over to the hammock, and Richie didn’t fully realize that he had stood up in the first place until he was nestled in the suspended fabric, wrapped in a thin layer of dust and the overbearing need for sleep.

Letting his eyes flutter shut, Richie slipped into a dream.

_ It was 1989 again, and Richie was in the clubhouse alone. He was tangled in the thin fabric of the hammock, a frayed comic book splayed across his lap, coke bottle glasses dipping down the bridge of his nose.  _

Distantly, he heard the sound of crooning, low and smooth across the room. 

Richie squinted, spotting a lithe figure at the end of the room, their back to him as the singing continued softly.

_ “I’m so young, and you’re so old. This, my darling, I’ve been told.” _

Richie’s breath hitched, feeling like he was tumbling over the dizzying precipice of something so horrifying you couldn’t look away. No, it couldn’t be.

_ “I don’t care just what they say, ‘cause forever I will pray.” _

Richie’s heart stopped, a dead weight in his chest, and it crawled up his throat, a warm, wet, pulsing mass in his throat as he let out a choked sound.

Someone from his childhood had been able to do an eerily accurate _Paul Anka_ imitation. Yes, Richie remembered. 

_ “He can sayng! _ _”_ Richie had yelled, slinging an arm around his shoulder, that hot day in the summer of 1989. His own voice was unrecognizable, slipping into his infamous Pickaninny Voice, _“_ _ Want you to sign right here, boy, on this dotted line. We’re going to grow your hair out, boy. Going to give you a git-tar—“ _

And the boy had just rolled his eyes, smiling a good-natured smile, a ghost of a grin. He had always been so adult, even as kids, like he didn’t know how to be young, like he was chilled by the overlooming shadow of something only he could see. The shadow encroached on his childhood like clouds over the horizon and etched premature wrinkles into his face, digging him an early grave and insurmountable levels of fear. _Fear,_ he had always been so _scared._

The boy turned around, facing Richie. Blood covered his clothes, and his fingers were trembling. He was smiling, a bubble of thick black liquid spilling out of his crooning mouth and over his lips like hot tar, but the smile didn’t quite reach his eyes, which were glassy and weeping the same ebonite tears, streaking coal-miner lines down his face.

_“You and I will be as free,”_ he sang, vowels gurgling over that blackness spilling from his lungs, _“as the birds up in the trees.”_

Richie whimpered, breath a distant dream as his lungs constricted like an iron fist had closed around his chest and squeezed.

He looked at the blond curls plastered to the boy’s waxy forehead.

_ “ Stan.” _

Stan-who-wasn’t-really-Stan-or-who-maybe-was stumbled towards Richie, grimacing. He clutched his stomach, and when Richie’s eyes darted down to follow the movement, he saw a gaping wound in his chest, spilling out thick rivers of black blood, dropping wetly to the ground.  His cold hands closed mechanically around the edges of the hammock, straggling in his grip as he inches further away from the approaching boy. A sob died in his throat as he looked up and was met with the face of—

_ “Eddie.” _

Blood spilled over his mouth, spilling down his chin and soaking the front of his shirt just like it had at the Neibolt house that summer. His eyes were glassy, and they twinkled with tears. He was right beside Richie now, peering over him, looking impossibly small and impossibly frail.

His eyes were dark and sallow, as if crudely dug into his pale face, cheekbones hollow and skeletal as he smiled a mirthless smile at Richie.

_ “ Rich _ _,”_ he spoke through a bubble of blood, _“_ _ your ten minutes are—“ _

—up,” a voice said, rousing him out of his sleep.

“Ah! What?!” he choked out, scrambling for a grip, the hammock tipping over and disposing him on the dusty ground.

Richie groaned as his glasses dug into his face, panting with his cheek pressed into the cool dirt where a loose floorboard had dislodged itself.

“I said,” Beverly laughed, patting his shoulder, “you should be getting up.”

Richie groaned at the crick in his neck and the dull ache in his back as he pulled himself into a sitting position. He was too fucking old for this.

Looking around, he saw the rest of the Losers’ faces, _Mike, Ben, Bill..._

“Eddie,” Richie said hoarsely, swallowing, “where’s Eddie.”

Beverly frowned at him, crouching down and pressing a hand to his head, brows knitted in obvious concern. Richie hated that look, that pitiful sympathy.

“Richie, he’s back at the hospital still. Are you feeling alright? Did you hit your head?”

He swatted her hand away, gulping and propping himself up against one of the thick wooden stilts of the Clubhouse, glaring at the concerned eyes of the rest of the Losers.

“I’m fine,” he said sharply, running a hand through his hair, plastered against his forehead.

“Okay,” she said simply, and Richie was grateful for that. She always knew when to let things go, it was why she was his best friend, “well, we’re starved. I think we might head over to that new Italian restaurant down the street.”

The Losers chatted amiably, bubbles of laughter reining in the conversation as Richie tried to push that image of Stan and Eddie convulsing at his feet, black blood spurting from their mouths like fountains as they writhed and paled in front of him.

_ "Rich, your ten minutes are up.” _

_ Just a dream _ _,_ Richie told himself, shuddering , _it was just a dream._

“What do you think, Richie?”

Richie blinked dumbly, staring up at them, “Huh?”

Mike laughed, “Oblivious as ever, Trashmouth,” but Beverly looked troubled as she watched his glazed eyes.

“I s-s-said,” Bill reinstated, smiling, “you coming to dinner with us? Italian food sound good?”

_Dinner?_ Richie thought, _how long had he been out?_

“Yeah,” he said, “yeah, that sounds good. I think Chinese food is ruined forever for me.”

Bill helped pull him up, clamping a friendly hand down on his shoulder as they walked towards the later.

“If that means I never have to hear your Chinese Coolie Voice ever again in my lifetime, I think I’m okay with that.”

“Don’t be such a Debby Down-awh, Big Birr,” Richie said in his terrible rendition of a Chinese accent that was definitely fifty shades of wrong, “I feel like, if I get good enough, someday I’ll earn your love.”

The Losers laughed, and Bill shook his head, “You’ve been saying that for twenty seven years, Trashmouth.”

“Hey, I never said it would be easy!”

Bill just laughed, pulling him into a loose headlock as they walked, “Keep telling yourself that.”

Bill grimaced, pushing Richie away with a shove to his greasy curls, “And Richie? Take a shower, you smell like death.  _Eddie_ smells better than you and he literally came back from the dead.”

Ignoring the mention of Eddie, Richie made sloppy kissing gestures at Bill, leaning in closer to him, only to get a palm to the face Bill started to grip the rungs of the ladder.

“Fine,” Richie said dramatically, “but I expect a football field of fettuccine alfredo in return for my services.”

The Losers just laugh, Beverly smacking Richie on the can to get him moving, and he started to follow Bill up the ladder, stepping out into the warm summer day.  As they fell into comfortable conversation, Richie slowly felt himself relax. He pushed the dream out of his mind and let himself bask in the easy laughter of his friends.  It’s not like the dream meant anything anyways. With a twitch of his heart, Richie decidedly concluded: 

_ Stan was gone, and he wasn’t coming back. _

“Hey, wait up!” he called to his friends, and bumped elbows with Bill and Beverly as they made their way to Mike’s car, ready to put the past behind them.


	23. Chapter Twenty Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's 5.2k words of fluff before shit starts to get real. Also bonus points to whoever can spot the Richard Siken reference. ;)
> 
> Also I love reading your comments, each one inspires me to keep writing and I love seeing your thoughts and reactions and predictions! I hope you’re enjoying it 🥺💖

An hour later, Richie sat in the red leather booth of the Taste of Italy restaurant. His stubble shaved close to his face, glasses clean and perched atop his nose, black curls washed and soft around his ears. His fingernails were clean and meticulously cut in a way that Eddie Kaspbrak would certainly approve of, and distantly, Richie wondered if he subconsciously did that because if him.

Beverly had practically pushed him into the shower when they got back to the Townhouses, and then insisted Richie dress up when he went back to his house, much to Richie's repeated protests, but he humoured her, because when Beverly Marsh tells you to do something with the fire in her eyes burning as bright as her flaming hair, you _listen. _ He fiddled with the sleeves of his white dress shirt, tucked into his pressed grey dress pants. His jacket was slung across the seat behind him, and he drank his water idly as they waited for their food to come.

“Wow, you clean up nice, Trashmouth,” Beverly hooted, whistling lowly as Richie laughed into his glass.

“You sound shocked, I’m offended,” Richie scoffed.

“No offence, Rich,” Ben piped up, “but you do come across as the kind of guy who would wear a Hawaiian shirt to his own wedding.”

“I still could, Haystack,” he shrugged, wiggling his fingers pointedly, “I’m a single man.”

“I can’t possibly imagine why,” Bill joked, letting out a small ‘_oof’_ as Richie punched his shoulder.

“Whatever happened to you and Eddie’s mom?” Ben grinned, sipping his wine.

“Ah, the old witch bit the bullet years ago. Guess it’s time to hit up Myra then, huh? It’s basically the same thing anyways, looks like Eddie Bear has a type.”

Mike rolled his eyes, Bill snorting as he fiddled with his watch. It was a nice watch, sparkling silver with a cool antique interface. There was no denying Bill was well off, taking one look at the band around his wrist or the navy suit draped across his broad shoulders. B ut he was successful in that modest, respectable kind of way. That quiet way of having everything together that never ceased to marvel Richie, even after thirty years. He was still the same strong, powerful Big Bill they all knew and loved as children.  As Richie took a sip of his wine, he thought to himself, that it was nice that some things never changed. That while the world was turning, there were familiar smiles along the way to ground you in your roots. That, regardless of where you go, you’ll never forget where you started, and that maybe, you all return back to that place eventually, and find you can still call it home. Find that, really, it’s never been anything but.

“Beep beep, Richie,” Beverly smiled at him.

She truly was radiant, the sun seemingly to not just reflect upon her hair, but rather burn within it. It cascaded down her shoulders sheathed in a see-through shawl with tiny little encrusted jewels embedded in it. She was wearing a simple red dress, hugging her soft curves.  Dainty pearl earrings glimmered in her earlobes, and her smile was pulled from ear to ear, cheeks flushed under the soft glow of the restaurant, skin milk-white and dotted with light freckles. The ring on her finger winked in the light, as did her thick-lashed green eyes as she grinned playfully at him.

If Richie wasn’t so far gone for Eddie, in some alternate universe, he thinks he could see himself loving Beverly very well. She was hard not to love, with her sparkling presence and warm voice. In that moment, Richie found himself very grateful that she was his friend.

As the Losers chatted good-naturedly, Richie stared into his glass, watching the wine settle and flow. It had been awhile since he’d been this dressed up, he thought to himself, it was—

_ A warm summer evening, one of many others that were to follow. California was sunny, golden, and bathed in the pale twinkle of the skyline at night. _

Richie was sitting at a booth not unlike the one he sat in with the Losers right now, directly across from a beautiful girl. 

Her skin was flawless, like porcelain, her cheeks bathed in a soft pink. Her hazel eyes glimmered like diamonds beneath the charcoal-coloured eyeshadow chalked across her lids. Her eyelashes fanned across her cheekbones like shadows in the early dawn, and as she leaned forward, her twinkling silver pendant dipped between the soft curve of her breasts. 

Looking back on it, she looked a lot like Beverly Marsh.

Richie couldn’t for the life of him remember her name.

“This doesn’t seem to be your kind of scene,” she said simply, hand closed around the base of her glass, nails lacquered ruby red.

“Is that so?” he asked, sipping some poison of his own, eyes unmoving and bored where they stared at the wall over her shoulder.

“I think you’re here for the press,” she said, pursing her lips as wine stained them a pretty maroon, “I think that when you go home at night, you lose that cool exterior. I think you’re a very bored man, Richie Tozier.”

Richie laughed drily, hands closing around his glass, staining fingerprints into the globe, “I think you don’t know a goddamn thing about me.”

“Maybe so,” she smiled, “but isn’t that the best outcome for these kinds of things?”

The words rung in Richie’s head twenty minutes later as he was escorting her out of the cab, kissing her all the way into his lonely apartment as they stumbled backwards, Richie lost in that dizzying precipice as he tumbled right over.  He fell back into the bed, the woman close behind as she crawled up his half-naked body, kissing bruising, _searing_ kisses into his skin, trailing a guilty line up his neck and jaw.  Richie squeezed his eyes shut as his hands hovered over her bare hips, ghosting a touch, but never really leaning into it. A promise, or maybe a plead. Both went unheard.

There it was again, that overwhelming dread. That twist in his gut and burn in his throat. That looming memory, like something was stopping him, something he was  forgetting. Something he was _indebted_ to. Like he was a slave to his past, but willing in the submission to it, only he couldn't for the life of him place what he was longing for, how to fill that gaping canyon in the junction between his ribs and his heart that he didn't know got there in the first place.

“Look at me, Richie,” she said, tracing a hand down his chest.

His eyes stayed squeezed shut, the weight between his legs limp and unmoving as her kisses seared burn marks across his shoulders.

“Richie,” she said again, “look at me.”

Richie did. His eyes fluttered open, falling upon the topless woman perched across his hips, her thighs pale and soft around his own. He took one look at her green eyes, the promise of everything he could have, if only things had been different...if only _he_ had been different.

“I’m sorry, I can’t do this,” he managed to choke out, staring blankly at her breasts.

She peered down at him through dark-lidded eyes for a moment, looking unsurprised, but quietly judgemental all the same. And then she was dismounting, shrugging on her trench coat and picking up her panties from the ground, just like in the movies.  She fussed with her hair in the mirror for a moment, looking at Richie in the mirror, hunched shirtless over the bed.

“You’ve got something in your past, and it’s chasing you, Richie,” she said, tugging the belt of her coat tighter around her waist, “you better sort that shit out.”

All Richie could do was stare blankly at the wall. The way you did when you were breaking down, in the way where you’re not really looking at the wall, per se, but away from something else harder to stomach, harder to face. You’re half-naked and slumped over like a drunk and you think to yourself that you didn’t do a very good job painting that wall. But it doesn’t really matter of course, does it? But you tell yourselfthat it does because it’s better to focus on the exposed drywall than your exposed heart, writhing and bruised in plain air, or the half-naked woman boring holes into the side of your face with her eyes, and you wonder distantly if she  _knows. _

Knows your  _dirty little secret_, knows the shadows that make themselves at home in your heart at night, knows you as well as she claims to as those piercing jewel-toned eyes bore into the side of your face as she straddled your shaking thighs.

Distantly, he thinks, _ Big Bill. He used to ride that bike into the morning sun, like he was trying, like he was trying to beat the Devil._

And then, to his horror, he starts laughing, that nonsensical phrase pulled from the silence meaning nothing to him, but holding so much power nonetheless.

As he sat there, laughing half-naked on his bed in the dead of night, Richie wondered if he was going crazy.

_ That night, on his terrace, under the twinkling tapestry of stars and the searing burn of the skyline across the horizon, flaming like a livewire, Richie smoked his first cigarette in nearly twenty seven years. _

Richie tipped the last of the wine into his mouth and as the waiter placed their food around the table, he willed himself to forget.

* * *

Richie sucked in a breath, cheeks hollowing around a cigarette as he cast his face towards the sky, a pillar of smoke billowing from his parted lips.

“Trying to dine and ditch?” a voice said behind him, and Richie smiled as Bev sidled up beside him, “That’s a low ball, even for you.”

Richie chuckled, looking up at the night sky.

“You’ve really gotta stop smoking,” Beverly said, plucking the cigarette from his fingers, but took a drag herself, grinning through a cloud of tobacco, “such a bad influence.”

“Don’t try to fool me, Marsh,” he said, taking it back from her, “I stole my cigarettes from you as a kid, remember?”

“How could I forget?” Beverly smiled, rocking on her feet, “Took them all and couldn’t even smoke ‘em properly. Richie Tozier, or as I liked to call it: _One Hit Wonder.”_

Richie laughed, coughing on a cloud of smoke as he shook his head, “You’re brutal, Bev.”

“See? Can’t even smoke them thirty years later,” she took another drag, “let it go, Richie.”

“Lay off it, wah-man, an’t a boy smoke tah catch the attention of his true love?” Richie said in a truly terrible Voice.

“He can,” Beverly said, looking at him with a small smile, before continuing in a tone that clearly addressed what she had been skirting around saying the past few days back in Derry, “I’m just not that person.”

Richie sighed, and she followed in turn, handing him back the cigarette, which he took a hasty drag of before stubbing it out with his foot.

“Richie, you’ve gotta talk to him, honey.”

“Beverly, he’s _hurt_. He had a monstrous clown fucker impale him with a crab leg and now he’s alive again after being_ dead_ for three weeks. The last thing he needs right now is to think his best friend is creeping on him.”

She shook her head, “You really don’t get it, do you?”

“Get wha—“ Richie started tersely, before being interrupted by approaching footsteps.

“Cheapin’ out, Richie?” Bill chuckled, walking towards him, Mike and Ben close in tow, “I know your comedy career isn’t struggling that much, I’ve seen the numbers.”

“Your mom’s running me dry, Big Bill,” Richie said, pausing before adding, “and not just my bank account if you know what I mean.”

“Oh, you’re so full of s-s-shit, Tozier,” Bill laughed, swinging an arm around his shoulder as they walked to Mike’s car.

“That’s not what your mom said last n—“

“Beep beep, Richie,” Ben interrupted.

“Fine. But I call shotgun!” Richie hooted, clumsily sliding into the passenger seat.

“That’s our Trashmouth,” Beverly smiled, ruffling his hair.

And as Richie settled into the leather seats, Bill casting him a sidelong, unbelieving glance and softly rolling his eyes, Richie felt young again, just for that moment.  For a fraction of time, hazy and soft like the gentle, bittersweet endings of a dream, it was the summer of 1992 again, sun pouring through the windows and beaming across his face, the rest of his life laid sprawled out before him like a winding red carpet, or a gleaming yellow brick road, or his too-gangly legs intertwining with Eddie's as they crammed themselves into that tiny hammock.

As Bill put the car in reverse and pulled them out of the parking lot, Richie thought to himself that maybe, just maybe, all of this was enough.

Training his eyes on the window beside him, he watched his childhood pass by in a blur.

* * *

“Remind me  _why_ we’re standing outside in the freezing cold again,” Mike huffed as he fiddled with his belt, where his sheriff’s badge sat emblazoned on his hip.

Beverly pulled Ben’s jacket—which he had ever-so-graciously slung over her shoulders moments before, closer to her body, dipping her chin into the collar, nestled under Ben’s stupidly muscular arm.

_Oh yeah, he was totally getting laid for that tonight_, Richie thought, only a little sulkily, and turned back at the gang with a shit-eating grin.

“What, like you’ve never broken into the rotting arcade of your childhood."

“Can’t say that I have, Rich,” Mike frowned, gazing up at the dilapidated structure.

“Oh, and you have?” Bill snorted, jostling Richie’s shoulder.

“I have, actually, Big Bill, somewhere between the avenue of  _ ‘not being a pussy_ _,’_ and_ ‘thinking _ _ Eddie was a bag of dead bones.’”_

“Rich—“ Ben started, frowning, admonishing him with a startled look.

“Are you gonna come with or not?”

The Losers exchanged mutual glances, having a silent debate before glaring back at Richie, probably looking not unlike a puppy who just dug a hole halfway to China, and conceded.

“This is_ so_ illegal,” Mike sighed, hunching up as small as his large frame would allow, landing impossibly smooth on the floor below.

“You’re lucky I love you,” Beverly laughed, climbing lithely through the gap.

“And _you’re_ lucky I’m not fat anymore,” Ben rolled his eyes, tumbling in after his girlfriend.

Richie turned to Bill expectantly, grinning so wide it almost hurt, “Whaddya say, Big Bill?”

Bill pursed his lips, a crease cutting a line between his furrowed brows, “I hate you for this,” he said finally, and Richie cackled triumphantly as he ducked in through the empty window pane.

“Say, it’s a good thing you’re not really_ b___ig_,_ Bill, Big Bill.” Richie started to crack as he clumsily fell through the gap.

He cut himself off mid-sentence as he saw Bill staring blankly down at his wrists, face pale and looking far, far older under the unrelenting shadows of the night. But his eyes, the blatant, raw fear swimming within them, was so young that Richie found it hard to reconcile the man standing in front of him with the stuttering, sure leader of his childhood, jaw set in determination as he took on adversaries bigger than himself, bigger than _all_ of them.

Bill didn’t look like that self-assured, confident leader Richie looked up to through a blur of smudged coke-bottle glasses and hazy, young, blind idolism.

He just looked _scared._

And maybe that’s what punched the breath from his lungs, making him fumble for an inhale he most certainly didn’t need, for a disease he most certainly didn’t have. 

His eyes followed the path of Bill’s, where his wrists were slashed and bleeding with thin pin-stripes of red, raised white skin curling over it like the unfurled pages of a battered book. The streaks of red dripped down his arm, careening onto a large shard of broken glass, staining it with flowery tendrils of blood.

_ The oath _ _,_ Richie thought dizzily.

And then Mike, Beverly and Ben were rushing over, Bill stuttering out a weak, “M-Muh-My w-w-wrists!”

“Oh my God,” Beverly breathed, holding Bill’s injured hands, stroking a thumb up his palm.

_ “ Fuck _ _,”_ Mike hissed, examining the slash marks, which, thankfully—looked rather shallow and uglier than they really were, “looks like the glass cut you.”

“We should just go back—“ Beverly started, looking concernedly at Ben, who watched with a troubled face.

“N-N-No! I’m_ fine!_ J-J-Just get the first-aid kit off the wall!” Bill said harshly, shocking them into action as Ben mutely handed the white case over to Mike.

Richie watched the blood drip off the shard of glass with a sort of morbid transfixion, wondering why he suddenly felt like something very big had changed.  The stiff commotion placated after a few moments, the soft sounds of bandages being wrapped loosely around Bill’s hands the only noise occupying the room. Richie didn’t dare breathe.

And then Mike laughed softly, “Too bad Eddie’s not here.”

Richie chuckled, a smile finding its way up his lips as he imagined what the little hypochondriac would have to say about this situation.

“Believe it or not, Dr. K broke in here with the ol’ Trashmouth years back. And no you don’t, he would probably criticize your bandaging technique”

Richie waited a beat before slipping into a voice, shrill and petulant, _“‘Did you even disinfect the wound? Does disease control mean nothing to you?’”_

Mike laughed, looking over as Richie rose to his feet, slowly walking across the floor, “That’s pretty good, Trashmouth.”

“Yeah, you get good at knowing a person’s voice after annoying them your whole life.”

_After being in love with them your whole life,_ he thought.

“Hey, looks like they kept this old piece of junk,” Richie said, but his voice was fond.

The Losers watched as he approached the large steel box in the cobweb-infested corner of the room, covered in a thick layer of dust and a black tarp. Richie tore the cover off, revealing the finger-print smattered glass of the old claw machine.

“Say, Mikey, you got any power in here?”

Mike rolled his eyes, walking over to a fuse box, shoes clicking on the grimy floor as he pulled a keyring from his pocket, swinging the door open with a metallic screech, flipping a line of switches.

“Maybe I should win Eds something,” Richie grinned, tapping on the glass, where an impressive array of stuffed animals still sat.

Wrinkling his nose, Bill said, “I think he would kill you.”

As the lights came on, illuminating the old arcade, Richie grinned.

“Got a quarter?”

* * *

_ The year was 1989, the sickly pale of twilight was steadily encroaching on the summer’s day, pouring in through the windows in beams of soft white. The steady trill of Street Fighter buzzed in the air, silence clumsily following as Richie pulled the plug, tucking the socket behind the console where they had found it. _

A few feet away, Eddie was quietly watching the big metal box of the claw machine, wrapped in that warm blanket of drowsiness as his his eyes zeroed in on a small blue bear, but as he gazed at Richie, the underlying rush of the summer seemed to thrum beneath his skin.

Richie could understand that.

“So, I beat you at Street Fighter how many times, Eds? Remind me again,” he grinned, sidling up beside him.

“Oh, shut up Richie. And don’t call me that,” he added, but sounded distant as he stared into the streaked glass windows of the arcade machine.

Richie’s smile only grew at that, eyes twinkling behind his coke-bottle glasses. He felt unbelievably endeared, a fuzzy warmth spreading across his chest and starting to creep up his ears as he watched Eddie’s wide eyes and small frown.

“See somethin’ you like, Spaghetti?”

Eddie jumped back like he’d been burned, scowling at Richie as a flush rose up his cheeks, worrying at his lower lip almost indignantly.

“No! Do you even _know_ how many germs are in those things? I could probably catch ten diseases just looking at it!” 

Richie let Eddie ramble in his usual fervent manner, smiling fondly at his familiar pinched face and the shrill tone to his voice. 

“And...” Eddie said softly, frowning at the glass, “they’re so  _girly.”_

He spat out that last part like it was one of those disgusting diseases he was always going on about, and Richie had no doubts he was thinking about those ‘girly’ men down the street with the nice manicured lawn and what his mother had had to say about them.

They’re so  _gay__,_ the words went unspoken, but heard all the same.

Distantly, and certainly not for the first time, Richie thought,  _he was going to kill Mrs. K._

And then, with the finesse only achieved by a boy hopelessly in love, Richie said, “Awe, but Eds, you are a pretty girl! You’d make a fine, fine wife, lassie!” he added, slipping into his Irish Cop Voice.

Squirming out of the noogie Richie slung him into, frowning up at him red-faced and cheeks squished against Richie’s forearm, he sighed, “You really are a turd sometimes, Richie.”

“Only sometimes?” Richie crowed triumphantly, pulling him closer to his chest,  “Aw, Eds, I dare say you’re softening!”

“Don’t call me that,” he griped, pushing his way under and out of Richie’s arm, where he had been held against Richie’s chest, “and come on, asshole, my mom’s gonna kill me.”

Holding up a quarter, the gleaming silver winking in the pale moonlight, he grinned, wiggling his eyebrows, “Then it won’t really matter how much later you are then, right?”

Eddie crossed his arms, pinning Richie with an accusatory glare before conceding, stepping forward and sighing sadly, “My face is probably on a milk carton by now.”

Richie just smiled, eyes trailing the claw as he maneuvered it around the box, not letting the little huff or the way Eddie’s small hand closed around his bicep distract him from the game, or the way his heart was currently crawling up his throat.

* * *

Richie didn’t win the bear that time, or the next time, or the next. It was only when he’d emptied his pockets clean of spare change and Eddie was branding fingerprints into his arm as he practically dragged him outside that he finally admitted defeat, still sulking all the way home.

“You just used up all your allowance, idiot,” Eddie snorted, “you really can’t not be competitive for once, huh?”

Richie just stared ahead at the deserted horizon, ignoring the way Eddie’s hand brushed against his, or how warm his pulse was beneath his skin, or the almost overwhelming need for the words,  it’s not like that, to come out of his mouth.

Instead he snorted, “I always finish first with Mrs. K, of course I’d be competitive, Eddie my love.”

Eddie just frowned as they turned the corner onto his street, “I’m not sure that’s something to be proud of.”

Richie suspected Eddie truly  didn’t know if it was something to be proud of. Eddie could tell you fifty different ways he could die in any given situation, but as far as sexual education goes, the slate seemed to be one big question mark, courtesy of good ol’ Mrs. K, of course. Richie ignored the thought and the way it sent a hot ribbon of heat that even he didn’t fully understand yet curling in his abdomen and rising up to his cheeks.

He just swallowed thickly, finishing lamely, “That’s just how hot your mom is, Eds.”

Eddie seemed to look inquisitively at him at that, noting the slight crackle in Richie’s voice and the distant, unplaceable look in his eyes. Richie didn’t dare meet his imploring gaze.

Luckily, they were standing in front of Eddie’s house, and like an old dog letting go of a bone, Eddie dropped the conversation.

“My mom’s going to kill me,” he said gloomily, looking down at his cast, where his arm was still fractured from his fall at the Neibolt house.

“She doesn’t have to know,” Richie said, voice suggestive.

“What are you saying?” Eddie frowned at him.

“I’m saying you could climb through your window.”

“Are you kidding?” Eddie hissed, looking nervously through the windows, soft light was coming from the living room where Mrs. K was most certainly watching her game shows on the couch. He shook his head, “Do you want me to break my  other arm?”

Richie rolled his eyes, “Don’t worry, Spaghetti, I’ll hold your hand the whole way up.”

“Oh, fuck off.”

“Would you rather face the wrath of Jabba the Hutt over here and be the first person in history to get murdered during a game of _ Wheel of Fortune?”_

Eddie bit his lip, brows furrowed, creasing soft lines across his forehead. He sighed, sidling up the the side of the house, “I really hate you sometimes.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Richie scoffed, boosting him up past the eaves of the roof, following closely.

They were lucky Eddie’s house was low to the ground, as short and stout as the paltry excuse for a mother that lived inside. Richie’s own mother always said houses reflected the family that lived within them.

Richie wondered distantly if that’s why his house always seemed so empty.

Slapping Eddie’s can good-naturedly, he watched as he clumsily slid the second-story window open. Inside, a soft light beamed over the neatly made bed and the considerably less neat stack of comic books splayed across it.

“Well? What are you waiting for, Christmas? Get in there, Eds,” Richie swallowed thickly, trying to ignore how desperately he wanted to climb in right after him.

“Beep beep, Richie,” Eddie said softly.

And then he was climbing through, landing with a soft sound and pulling the window shut. Richie sighed out into the night air and began to descend, walking all the way home.

* * *

After coaxing three bucks out of old man Wentworth on Wednesday and swiping a fiver from his wallet on Thursday, he still hadn’t won that damn teddy bear.  By Friday, he sat bear-less, pride-less, and one week’s allowance short as his dad noticed the missing money and decided to play bad cop.  By Saturday, Richie was forgetting, and by next week, it was like it never even happened. It’s funny, how distance makes everything seem so much clearer. Or maybe it’s just that the future is increasingly blurry and everything else looks like a sweet dream in comparison.

Oh well, hindsight’s 20/20, as they say.

But that Thursday night was still remembered as a blurry smudge of red-hot frustration, charcoal grey delirium, and the stomach-turning greenness of puberty’s less dignified faces.  He remembered stalking home from that stupid arcade, glasses pressed firmly against his nose and hands shoved half a mile deep in his pockets, kicking pebbles as he walked the empty streets, muttering petulantly to himself.

_ “That game is fucking— _

—rigged,” Bill snorted from where he sat on the counter, watching Richie carefully pluck up a small blue bear and navigate it towards the opening, “I tried winning those for Juh-Juh-Georgie all the time as a kid. Never won him anything once.”

“Watch and learn, Billy Boy,” Richie grinned to himself, and with disbelieving eyes and a shaky twitch of euphoria, he dropped the bear straight into the hole, the machine clunking celebratorily as the stuffed animal tumbled out into Richie’s hands.

Ben whistled lowly, and Bev smiled at him, looking impressed, “Well I’ll be damned.”

“Nice going, Rich,” Mike said, clapping him on the shoulder, “I didn’t know you were so good at he claw machine.”

Richie stared blankly at the teddy bear, thumb grazing over its soft stomach, “I _wasn’t.”_

“What do you say we ditch this place?” Mike said, patting Bill’s shoulder, “I think we’ve had enough adventure for one night, don’t you?”

Mike looked at Bill’s bandaged hands pointedly, and Richie thought he saw a cloud of concern pass over his face.

“Yeah,” Richie agreed, following them one by one out the door, which Ben had managed to unlock, “sounds good to me.”

If anyone noticed the way he clutched the bear closer to his chest as the car rolled down the streets, or the overly wistful look in his eyes, they didn’t say a thing.

* * *

The Losers departed at the hospital parking lot, Richie stepping out into the cool air, teddy bear tucked snugly under his arm.

“You sure you don’t need a ride home, Rich?” Beverly asked, looking softly at him under the pale glow of the streetlights.

“I’m sure, you guys go ahead,” Richie said, looking towards the hospital doors, “there’s something I gotta do first.”

Beverly smiled knowingly, blowing him a kiss, “Go get ‘em, Romeo.”

For a moment, Richie faltered, before playing it off as what he hoped could be interpreted as ‘smoothly,’ making a show of fixing his hair in the rear view mirror, slicking it back with a licked palm for added effect.

“The nurses won’t be able to resist this hotness,” he winked, “they’ll be wheeling _themselves _out of here by the time I’m done with them.”

“Beep beep, Richie,” the Losers said in unison, and Richie just grinned as they drove away.

He took a deep breath and walked through the door.

When he entered, he nodded in greeting to the drowsy looking secretary, only making it halfway through the blinding white corridor before the nurse they saw earlier stopped him, making her rounds down the hall.

“I’m afraid Mr. Kaspbrak is asleep,” she apologized, not looking very sympathetic at all.

“Oh great,” Richie said, moving to walk past her, shit-eating grin plastered across his face, “he’s a drooler, it’s adorable. Couldn’t miss it for the world.”

She stopped him with a gentle hand on his chest, “He’s on some pretty heavy drugs,” she warned.

“Welp, there goes his lifelong dreams of being a professional tennis player.”

Amazingly, the nurse laughed softly, taking well to Richie’s shrugging _‘babies must play’_ look and returning it with an amused one of her own.

“He totally could, I mean, have you  seen those calves?” Richie babbled, the looming exhaustion apparently removing his filter altogether. 

He’d better get out of here before he said something about Eddie’s  ass.

“His vitals are very healthy,” she agreed amiably, before pinning Richie with a knowing look that made him squirm, _“although,_ his heart monitor went off quite unexpectedly this morning,” she added, smiling.

“Huh. Weird,” Richie said, ignoring the flush that crept up his neck.

“An odd occurrence indeed,” she said, looking amused as she watched Richie turn his eyes down the hall, “and although you’re his boyfriend—“

_ “ Friend _ _,”_ Richie said hastily, blush flaring even more boldly across his cheek, “we’re just friends.”

“—I’m afraid only marital spouses are allowed in past visiting hours,” she finished, mouth twitching into a smile as he fumbled for words in front of her.

“Did I say friends? I meant we’re married. Totally. The wedding was beautiful, we had a five layer cake and a live mariachi band. You should’ve been there.”

She laughed, the sound soft and hushed in the empty corridor, “If that were true, you’d be the best married couple I’ve ever seen, seeing as you still have that flirtatious bickering.”

“Actually, me and his mother have a thing—wait,” Richie paused, looking like a very indignant deer in headlights,  _“flirtatious bickering?”_

The woman, Richie couldn’t believe his eyes, winked, and then looked pointedly at the teddy bear in his hand, “Is that for him?”

“Oh!” Richie said, looking down at it, trying for ‘cool’ and missing the mark by a considerable margin, “Yep, that’s for the ol’ Eddie Spaghetti.”

“I’m sure he loves that,” she chuckled.

“The nickname or the bear?”

But she just took the teddy from his hand, “I’ll be sure to see that it gets to Mr. Kaspbrak safely.”

Richie just watched blankly, a little stunned as she walked away, heels clicking on the linoleum floor. She paused a few steps ahead, turning back to look at him. 

She shot him a thoughtful look, tilting her head, “He talks in his sleep sometimes, you know.”

And then she was walking away, disappearing down the hall as Richie watched, baffled.

_ What the hell was that supposed to mean? _


	24. Chapter Twenty Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A chapter of the Losers adjusting to life back in their hometown. Eddie was found alive, but nothing is ever simple. After all, as Mrs. Kersh said, nobody ever really dies in Derry.
> 
> Just a heads up that this chapter does include two mentions of vomiting, and tackles the Losers' past trauma, including allusions to Stanley's death scene and the sexual abuse Beverly faced at the hands of her father. All instances are very light and non-graphic for the sake of my readers, but please proceed with caution if any of these themes are sensitive for you. 
> 
> If it's too graphic to read, you can find a safe synopsis in the end notes so you can still follow along with the story. :)
> 
> Love you all <3

Bill Denbrough’s bare feet pressed flush against the cool tile floor of Derry Townhouses, the frigid embrace welcome with the stiflingly close, near-suffocating heat of his racing mind, trilling under his skin like a fever. 

He was like a dog licking over the same wound, stepping over the same ground worn to shambles with each torturous, redundant footfall. There he was again, as young and as horrifically old as he had been that summer.  Everything that can get in must have an equal means of getting out, surely. So there he was, pawing at the same bastard thoughts bred out of insanity like a cat with a ball of yarn; manically entertained and hoping it all doesn’t unravel around him.

_ He thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists—still insists, he t-t-thrusts....against the p-p-posts, (goddammit), and still, (he STILL), insists he sees the ghosts. _

There he was again: dragging himself down the same cracked roads of his childhood, scraping his knees and burning his lungs, bringing his fists down on the pavement and his head between his knees as he pray to God he doesn’t hear a voice down in that desolate, endless sewers.  The haunting memories of his childhood playing like a stanza as ice cold dread ran through him like a fever.

The low fluorescent lights of the townhouse cast a burnt yellow tinge to the room, tendrils of sienna overreaching the peeling wallpaper, dripping down in dim imitations of shadow puppets.  He shivered, stepping into the slick bath, muscles twitching and groaning as the ribbed porcelain dug between his shoulder-blades, working out a knot wound tight in his back.  He let his eyes screw shut, the bath water creeping up the nape of his neck, biting at the lobes of his ears as he relinquished all control to the inviting warmth, shivery warm and close against the cool air fanning over his skin, creeping through the metal grates of the broken heat vent.

He closed his eyes, and it was the summer of 1989 again. 

_ Grasses as tall as your hipbone brashly made a home on your exposed shins in the form of shallow red slash marks, rays of pink desecrating the sun-kissed skin of the Losers as they stood huddled in the Barrens, a grim looking on their faces. _

Far too grim for anyone of the age of thirteen to be wearing. If an adult had been down there— well, if an adult had been down there, the Losers wouldn’t. Grownups were always overly concerned about safety, prioritizing it over the generally accepted unquelled childhood lust for adventure.  That was besides the point, because they_ had_ been down there that day in the Barrens, no adults in sight, bearing s expressions they did everything to deserve. But if there had been an adult down there, that day, they would have said:

_ “What’s a kid like you got to worry about? You aint seen nuthin’ yet.” _

But they _had_ seen a lot, far more than any grownup could ever imagine, could ever fathom, could ever bear to tolerate themselves. 

And so, like an adult watching kids put peppermints under the tree, knowing full well Santa doesn’t exist, and that if a fat man ever does climb down your chimney, you probably smoked some funny grass— the Losers accepted a kind of superior knowledge apart from anything their elders might have said.  And maybe that’s why they had all looked at Bill so reverently that day, looking for some kind of truth in a senseless world between the faint crease in his eyebrows, inside that steely look on his face.  Just as easily as the trauma had bound them together, it drove them apart. They had hardly seen each other after that summer, hanging out in pairs or groups, but never again in those twenty seven years did the Lucky Seven all breathe the same air. 

And that, Bill suspected, was exactly how it was supposed to be.

But there, in that moment, brambles scaling a trail of heat up his shins, where a light splattering of pre-pubescent peach fuzz was beginning, sun beaming down on them over the rolling horizon, they were together.

He had approached Stan, bandaged wrapped tightly across his cheeks, nestled snugly under his chin and over his temples, where thick brown curls spilled over across his forehead. 

He pinned him with a steely look of fear, green eyes boring into Stan’s hazel gaze, face pinched in a look of reluctant complacency.

_ “ S-S-Swear it, _ _”_ Bill said, stepping towards him.

Stan had looked down, resigned as ever as he looked at his usually immaculate sneakers, tainted with grime and blood that rocked the core of Stan’s world.

He had nothing left to lose.

And then he had nodded, eyes teary and scrunched up

_ “I swear, Bill _ _,”_ Stanley had said quietly as the broken glass dug into the softness of his palm, spilling a thick bubble of maroon spilling over his knuckles and onto the dirt below.

_ I swear, Bill. I swear— _

Bill looked down with a sickening pull at his gut, nearly spilling out thesour bile crawling at his throat as he was met with the sight of pink water.

Then an image,_ adult Stan hunched over the side of the white tub like a ragdoll, eyes blank and shiny, the picture of horror, and wrists streaking—_

Ugly gashes of red down the line of the bath, careening in a sick nosedive towards the white tile floor. His bandages had come undone, wrists spilling blood where he had cut them on the broken window earlier that night.  The chromium faucet echoed his horrified face, pale and sickly looking as it twisted and distorted with each violent tremble of Bill’s body.  Bill opened up his mouth and let out a soundless scream, clambering out of the tub with a faint warble in his throat as he keeled down on the blood-stained bathroom floor, emptying his stomach’s content into the toilet bowl.

Faintly, he thought he heard the sound of children laughing bubbling up from the sewers, where the draingargled and spat as the red water drew towards the sewers like a moth to the light.

_ It’s all your fault, Bill. _

He braced his head in the crook of his arms, slumping over the tile as he began to sob.

* * *

In a room a few doors down, Beverly Marsh was having a shower. 

She welcomed the tickly warm drag of water against her skin, stale and dry from the nights’ events. Steam billowed around her pale body like a cloud, hugging her breasts and grazing the small of her back, where a small line of freckles lay.  Her auburn hair was plastered to her forehead, long and twisting as it careened down her shoulder-blades, lips dark pink and softened in the onslaught of steam. She let her eyes flutter shut, lashes a dark shadow on the high of her cheeks.  She sighed contentedly, leaning against the tile wall in earnest as the warmth did wonders to loosen the tension at the junction of her neck and back, melting away like a receding tide.

The bathroom had always been sort of a sanctuary for her growing up, it was the only room with a functioning lock, the only place where beer bottles ceased to lay splayed across the floor, mingling in soot-coloured cigarette burns etched into the carpet. 

It was the only place she was safe from her father’s hand, striking down to burn red handprints into her skin. 

But he was too drunk to fumble with the rusted lock, and it was in those moments, hearing the wheezing snores of her father in the living room that Beverly would breathe for the first time in days, sometimes weeks, letting her shaking knees buckle as she curled up on the tile floor.  And then, when she felt brave enough, when the angry red belt marks would placate against her shins, she would crawl into the empty bathtub and clutch that postcard to her chest.

_ Your hair is winter fire, January embers. My heart burns there too . _

The bathroom had seen the scared little girl become the woman she was today, and maybe that’s why it all meant so much.

She remembered being thirteen that summer, hunched in a corner of the bathroom, skin tacky with tears and wrists still burning where the harsh metal buckle of her father’s belt struck her twenty minutes before.  Pulling herself to her feet, shucking her shorts down around her ankles as she sat on the cool porcelain seat of the toilet. And then, like a dark cloud rolling over the horizon, like the static in the air before a storm, a single drop of crimson red blood seeped through her white cotton underwear.

It looked almost accusatorilly at her, like the unforgiving eyes of a jet-black raven, as dark and as endless as the night

As accusing as her father’s voice as he gripped her wrist painfully tight sometimes, leaning into her hair and whispering:

_ Are you still my little girl, Bevvie? _

She stared blankly down at the tendrils of blood seeping through her cotton underwear. It felt wrong. Violating. Like a murder in a child’s playground.

_Daddy never makes me bleed__,_ she thought deliriously. 

Beverly knew far too much for her young age about what others could do to her body and startlingly little about how it worked for her. She gazed blindly down between her legs with the kind of horrified look of a person watching their childhood slip behind the trees, and held a shaky kind of realization behind that fog of brimming tears. 

Looking back, it was not when she first came face to face with It, but then that her childhood innocence ended.

Beverly remembered yanking her shorts back up, face flaming like her auburn hair as he stuffed a wad of toilet paper down her panties and slipped past her father. That was the day she met the Losers, the first time the Lucky Seven came face to face, a small brush in history that would echo for the next twenty seven years, ending as it began; with the shedding of blood. She remembered her father tucking her hair behind her ear: tell me you’re still my little girl. She remembered slipping into the bathroom, taking scissors to those curls, sending them careening into the drain, twisting like dampened flames.

_ She remembered the voices in the sink, the way she leaned over the drain, training an eye on that dank tunnel down below. She remembered the blood, so much— _

Blood. 

Just as it had twenty seven years ago, thick splatters of red erupted from the drains like a babbling river spitting up currents.

It was impossibly warm, mingling with the hot spray of water from the showerhead, but sent an unbearably cold chill through her body as the blood clung to her body like rain clings to a tarmac after a flood.  Beverly’s mouth fell open into a soundless sob, muscusy, blackening blood strung across her pale skin, soaking pink against the expanse of white like an overturned wine glass shattering at a roar.

The sound, almost ripped out of her, echoed through the room. Beverly took in a breathless, hitching gasp, and then she started to scream.

* * *

Ben Hanscom was poring over a dusty book when his fiancée first stepped into the shower. Five minutes later, unbeknownst to him at the time, he would be joining her, watching her cling shakily to the shower curtain, his own heart crawling up his throat.

_ His own secrets dying on his tongue. _

But for that moment, Ben Hanscom was reading a book.

The Derry Townhouses had an entire three walls of thick, yellowing books. A thick layer of dust as white as snow that would truly appall Eddie Kaspbrak sat accumulated on the shelves.  Ben wasn’t thinking about the diseases he could catch from it, however, as he plucked a familiar book off the shelves, dusting the filmy cover with the palm of his hand.

_The History of Old Derry, _ the book read.

Sitting himself on the faded couch, right in front of the fireplace, Ben opened the book, and started to read. It was rather amazing, really, how easily he fell back into it, even after nearly thirty years, he found himself mouthing the words trailed across the pages, knowing it by heart. In that moment, it was like it was 1989 again, nestled up in Derry’s library while other kids yelled and played outside, flying down the roads of Derry on bikes or on foot while  Ben-who-was-not-quite-Haystack-yet  wrote a haiku for a girl that would never notice him.

_I’m gonna marry that girl, if I ever get the chance, _ he remembered thinking one day, watching the soft orange light of winter pour in through the class’ windows, bathing her in a sleepy-warm glow, hair flaming like a chariot meant for Icarus himself. 

Ben smiled down at his hand, where a small gold band sat snug below his second knuckle. Getting to call Beverly Marsh his wife was one of life’s sweeter surprises.

He turned through the book, devouring it with rapt enthusiasm and the low buzz of remembrance. He came across the page of the old Derry Easter bombings and cringed,gut turning at the sight of the poor kid’s disembodied head nestled bloodily between the branches of a barren tree.  He flipped a few pages ahead, feeling a little sick to his stomach when the book landed on a segment Ben hadn’t remembered reading before.

Like getting thrown into a lake in the summer, icy cold dread seeped through Ben’s clothes, a shiver wracking through his body despite the fire roaring three feet away.  Like a car-wreck, Ben found himself unable to tear his eyes away, going against all his screaming instincts as he turned the page.

_ “ No, _ _”_ he breathed, book dropping into his lap in a way that would ache a very sensitive place a few hours later when he finally could see past the white haze of confusion and the searing trill of fear.

There, on page 321 was Ben’s smiling face, alongside the rest of the Losers. The pages seemed to turn on their own volition, revealing pulse-stuttering, gruesome images of Pennywise, and in one memorable photo that would etch its way into Ben’s memory forever, he was holding a live, still-beating heart, a bloody grin on his face.  But the image to finally knock the air out of his lungs was of Stan— or, rather, the horrifying spider Stan they saw in the sewers. Pincer legs protruded unnaturally from his temples, where a face-tearing grin crawled its way up to, eyes black and soulless.

_ ‘I GUESS STAN JUST COULDN’T CUT IT, _ _’_ blood spelled out in crude letters across the pages.

Ben stared, paralyzed in fear, hands trembling and blood thinning as his head grew dizzy, fear crashing over him like a tidal wave, wringing the air from his lungs and wrapping around him like a second skin.  Even before It, being scared in Derry was an open invitation for someone to rip your throat out, and even knowing that, Ben couldn’t bring himself to cease the dead hammering in his heart.

There comes a point where fear is so overwhelming, that all you can do is watch in horror as the cruel jaws of forces larger than you close around your throbbing heart.

He might have stared at the book for hours, if not for the distinct ripping sounds as the creature resembling Stan tore through the pages, spindly legs wrapping around the frayed cover.  Ben let out a choked yell, tossing it across the room, and was about to cough his throbbing heart up onto the floor when he heard the scream.  Taking one last look at the book sprawled across the floor, looking normal as ever, Ben ran upstairs as fast as his legs would carry him, and willed himself to forget.

* * *

Mike Hanlon wasn’t proud of himself, he decided as he looked over the weeds of the Barrens, a cloud of smoke reaching up towards the sky from the butt of his stolen cigarette.

But then again, none of his proudest moments had been spent in Derry. Most formative moments, maybe, most horrifying for sure. Mike was starting to wonder if he ever had a single proud moment in his life. 

He remembered his father telling him something when he was very young, clinging to his mind in the way a small child clings to their parent’s arm, vivid in the way no memory should be at that age.  It was clear enough and hopeful enough to instil doubt into Mike’s mind that it ever happened at all. But it was a thought that kept him warm at night, so he kept it close.

_“I ain’t never hard a proud moment in my life ‘til I first held you, Mikey,” _ his father had told him.

_ Yeah, Pops _ _,_ he thought with a chuckle, blowing a puff of smoke up towards the night sky, shoulders slumping,  _ well, I ain’t never had a kid of my own._

In that cruel way life sometimes operates in, Mike spotted a small figure crouched by the canal, funnily enough,as if thinking of kids had somehow brought one into existence.

Mike didn’t laugh, however. He knew the kind of power thoughts had in Derry.

Instead, he just brought his hand down on the badge holstered on his belt, walking slowly towards the figure, as if trying not to spook a deer. He had been sheriff for awhile in Derry, you live in a place long enough and people start pushing you into office, band the title still stood, even though he was signing papers to fully move to Florida.

He called out lazily into the night, stopping a good ten feet away, “Go home, boy. Kids like you shouldn’t be hanging around here this late.”

Mike shivered as he remembered the curfew ordained in Derry that fateful summer, the weight behind that order, even if they hadn’t known it yet.  And maybe it was that thought, or the way the figure didn’t respond or even flinch at his voice that propelled him forward, stubbing out his cigarette with his heel as he made his way towards the water bank.

“Hey—kid, I said head on home, alright?”

He touched the figure’s shoulders, red polo bathed in the pale moonlight, and then felt the air get punched out of his lungs as the boy finally turned around.

“I can’t go home, Mike. Because of you. You were supposed to protect us. You watched Derry for twenty seven years and you still couldn’t save me.”

Mike heard a garbled sob he would later struggle to place as his own or of the boy in front of him.

There, blood-soaked and bleeding from gashes on his pale face stood Stan, face crumpled in the picture of horror, the picture of fear, the picture of  betrayal.

_“You  left me!_ _”_ he sobbed, voice shrill and deafening against the silence of the night, _“You’re not my friends, you made me go into the Neibolt house!”_

“Stan, no!” Mike said, reaching for his arm.

But Stan only looked him straight in the eye, trembling like an epileptic as he whispered once more, _“You left me.”_

And then he was gone.

Mike found himself looking over the still canal, cool water lapping over his pant legs, not a single other person in sight. He shakily brought a hand to his face and was surprised when it came away wet, soaked with tears.  _I’m going to get the hell out of this town as soon as I can, and I’ll never come back,_ Mike promised as he trekked back up the hill to his car, beeping as he pressed the fob, headlights cutting through the darkness of the night.

_ Stan was gone. No amount of reliving the past could ever change that _ _,_ he told himself bitterly.

He turned the key into the ignition, and started to drive back to the townhouses.

_ Somewhere in the sewers, Stanley Uris stirred. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this chapter took so long! I've been struggling to find time to write in between assignments, but I have a ton of ideas for this story and plenty more chapters to come, so please keep reading if you feel so inclined! A lot of you have been asking it IT is coming back, and this chapter may allude to the idea that Pennywise is returning, so I just want to clear up that IT is not present in this story. :D
> 
> The Losers are just experiencing a ripple effect from Stan's death and subsequent resurrection, and are exhausted and suffering from blood loss, in Bill's case, which is causing the hallucinations. I tried to make the hallucinations tailored to each Loser's individual trauma and the intensity varying based off how close they were to Stan, Bill having the most violent reaction because,,, Stenbrough.
> 
> Also we're totally getting some reddie content in the next few chapters, I'm not starving you guys, don't worry, LMAO. Love you all, thanks for reading (as always), and feel free to leave comments or even things you'd like to see happen in the book and I'll try to provide that quality fanservice. ;)
> 
> ________________________________________________________________________________________________
> 
> SYNOPSIS (in case you skipped): The Losers experience hallucinations relating to Stan, Bill's wound bleeding out into the bath, mimicking the death of Stanley Uris as he remembers making Stan promise to return back to Derry if IT ever comes back, seeing flashes of Stan's death in his mind. Bill hears voices coming from the sewers and he gets out of the bath, getting sick into the toilet and starting to cry.
> 
> Beverly has her own hallucination, the shower spouting blood, reminding her of her own childhood trauma and paralling the gruesome death of her good friend Stanley. She falls down to her knees and screams.
> 
> Ben is downstairs, reading The Old History Of Derry book. He reflects fondly upon his feelings for Beverly and enjoys reading the old book until he sees images of the Losers and Pennywise on the pages, dropping the book and letting out a yell, hearing a scream from upstairs that belongs to Beverly. Taking one last look at the book, he rushes upstairs and wills himself to forget.
> 
> Mike is standing out in the Barrens, smoking a cigarette and reflecting on the troubled state of Derry and his own life. He sees a kid standing by the canal and tells him to head home. Upon a closer look, he realizes the kid is a young Stanley, who tells him it's all his fault that he died and repeating his 'you left me' monologue from all those years back. As Mike comes to, Stanley is gone, and he goes back into his car, driving home and promising to get the hell out of Derry as soon as possible.
> 
> Hope you enjoyed! :D


	25. Chapter Twenty Five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a cute little reddie chapter before the storm. There will be a lot more reddie from this point on, so rest assured a lot of gayness is on the horizon. Also, happy Halloween! What are you guys going as? I'm going as Eddie, I've got a red shirt, those tiny shorts he wears, white tube socks with rainbow stripes, a LoVer cast and an inhaler, I'm super excited. I hope you enjoy the chapter, and tune in on Friday for the next one!

Richie huffed a nervous breath, hand still poised on the cool metal doorknob as he let himself into the hospital room, immediately greeted with a strong medicinal smell that was so Eddie that if Richie closed his eyes, he could imagine he was in Eddie’s own childhood room again.

He half expected Sonia Kaspbrak to come bumbling through the door, painting expletives with a skilled flourish that even Richie couldn’t help but be impressed by. But she didn’t; it was just Richie and Eddie and the constantly underlying question of  _RichieAndEddie _ and the steady beep of the heart monitor poised bulkily across the room. And then there was the gentle huffs of Eddie breathing, somehow looking pissed even as he slept, and the deafening sound of Richie’s heart skidding to a screeching halt in his chest, and Richie wondered if the room was even quiet to begin with all all.

But it was drowned out by a more pressing thought, expanding and swelling like one of those balloons at the carnival games, and it burst in the form of a ragged gasp, painting the walls with the bold declaration:

_ Eddie was holding the bear Richie brought him. _

Eddie was holding the bear Richie brought him, and it was tucked beneath his chin, drawn to his chest, where his legs fought against the heavy linen sheets to snake their way up towards his bruised ribs. And he looked so young and so vulnerable, and every bit the petulant, bossy thirteen year-old he’d been the summer of 1989, but God, none of that really mattered, because Richie was so far gone that it stole the breath from his lungs and the thoughts from his mind, zeroing in on the simple fact that he was terribly in love with Eddie Kaspbrak, and had been since before he could put a name and a face to the warm feeling in his chest.

Along with the the understanding, inevitably followed the shame. It had been one of life's more brutal awakenings.

He let out a shuddering breath, shrill and a bit hysteric with the promise of a nervous bout of laughter bubbling up in his chest, and reached for his phone with shaking hands.

“Don’t you _dare_ fucking take a picture, Tozier,” Eddie grumped from the bed, popping one eye open and regarding Richie with the most distasteful look he’d ever seen.

Richie’s heart twinged.

He laughed, swallowing dryly, “Awe, but Eds, you look so cute! Cute, cute,  _cute!”_

He tried to ignore how much his mind way screaming at him that he really meant it, that he always did, that he should tell him now before he loses the chance because for once in his life, Eddie could actually die.

_Eddie  did die, and now he’s here and telling Richie to go fuck himself what the  fuck —_

“You better not fucking pinch my cheeks, Richie, I swear to God, I’ll kill you,” he warned, bringing his hand up to the gauze plastered across his face.

“You think I would touch your hole-punched face? You wound me, Spaghetti—“

“Don’t call me that—“

“But, tell ya what, Eds—“

“It’s  _Eddie —“_

“Every day I dream of pinching your sweet cheeks,” Richie grinned, slipping into that comfortable state of uninhibited vulgarity, “and then I get a boner and have to stop.”

“That is  _so_ fucking gross, I cannot  _believe _ you, _oh my God—“_

“Oh, so you  _do_ know what fucking is.”

“Yes, Richie, I know what_ fucking_ is! I have a _wife!”_ He yelled, saying the last bit more more like a question than a statement.

Call him sick, but boy, oh _boy_ did that bring a smile to Richie’s face. A smug, near-painful smile of the shit-eating variety.

“You’re telling me you_ ride _ that ride?”

“We are  _not_ talking about my sex life in a  _hospital__!”_ Eddie hissed, looking appalled, “I’m pretty sure there’s some dude dying down the hall.”

Richie knew he should stop, knew he should shut his big Trashmouth before he went too far. But then again, Richie never knew how to do that for long.

“So you’re saying there  _is_ an appropriate time to talk about your sex life?” he blurted out, only half joking. God, he needed to sit down.

“No!” Eddie all but yelled, turning bright red in the face before adding, _“Especially_ not if it concerns you!”

_“Yowch!_ Eddie Kaspbrak gets off a good one, folks!” Richie hooted, going into a Voice, before abandoning it just as quickly. “Ben _Handsome_ though, what a ride.”

Eddie looked mortified, burying his face in his hands, mindful of the gauze plastered across his cheek. “Oh my God, do you ever stop talking about your dick for one second?”

“Nah. Once I fucked your mom, it never went down again.”

“She’s been dead for _twenty years, _ asshole.”

“Yeah, sorry about that. Railed her into oblivion, it happens.”

He just shook his head disbelievingly, glaring at Richie with a tired look.

“Too far?”

“Beep beep, Richie,” Eddie rolled his eyes, no real bite behind his words.

Richie looked at him, perched on the chair beside his bed now, watching the early morning sun filter in through the window and dance across his too-pale face. He could use some sun— preferably of the West Coast variety.  Staring into his dark brown eyes and the stubborn stray curl falling over his forehead, Richie realized with a kind of abject horror that he wanted to pack Eddie on a plane and bring him home.

Not home to New York back with Myra, but back to  _California_ with _him. _

“You should probably call Myra,” Richie said, uncharacteristically quiet, hating how shy and uncertain his own voice sounded, like a man reluctantly martyring himself. 

Then, because apparently Richie craves death, he added sorely, “Y’know, before she starts eating people.”

Eddie just ignored the quip, and when Richie looked up from the scuffed floor, he was startled to see Eddie staring back at him. His voice was soft, smile quirked in a dim kind of annoyance. It was so familiar and so much like home that Richie could have walked right through it, made his bed and lay in that throbbing, aching pulse of love, and then died a happy man in it.

He loved him so much it fucking  _hurt_.

“I don’t want to call Myra,” Eddie said honestly, Richie’s eyes as wide and white as they were in the Deadlights. And then, as if startled by his own starkness, he coughed, looking down at the white linen sheets and adding, “not yet.”

“Eddie,” Richie said, heart a weak tremble in his chest, hands a more violent one where they lay sprawled across his knees.

Eddie looked up, looking guilty and flighty and every bit the child who used to take his poison with a resolute, miserable, _ "Yes, mommy.”_

Richie realized his own hand was gripping the bedspread, knuckles paling like his face. Everything was so sickeningly white, it felt more like winter, Richie’s bones feeling like barren trees ready to snap at any minute at the weight and drag of it all.

_What are you running from, Eds?_ he desperately wanted to ask,  _what are you running towards?_

Richie was still trying to find his words when the nurse walked in.

“Well,” she grinned, slipping in through the door, paying no mind to the way Richie and Eddie jumped apart, “I’m delighted to say I have good news for you both.”

“The super hot nurse that sponge-bathed Eds decided ol’ Richie Tozier could use some lovin’ too?” Richie quipped, jumping gratefully on the opportunity like a wanted man slipping into another train carriage.

“How the hell would that be good news for me? And don’t call me Eds,” Eddie spat back, glaring at his curly hair, as if it was that, and not his volatile trashmouth, that personally offended him.

“I’d let you watch,” Richie winked, and he thought he heard the nurse stifle a laugh at Eddie’s reddening face.

The nurse just shook her head, leaning over to put a new IV bag on Eddie’s machine, her necklace hanging just past the blouse of her scrubs.

“As enticing as that offer is, Mr. Tozier, I’m afraid that won’t be necessary. We would like to run some tests on you before we release Mr. Kaspbrak over here, however. Your friend was telling me you were in the same conditions as Eddie?”

Richie rolled his eyes, letting out a long, suffering groan from his mouth, gaping open in an angle that definitely wasn’t even remotely attractive, and out of the corner of his eye, he could have sworn he saw Eddie shake his head.

“Bill told you that, didn’t he? The fucker, I liked him better when he had the stutter.”

_“Richie!”_ Eddie chastened him, looking appalled. 

“Oh. Right, I forgot you had a hero complex for Big Bill back in the day. C’mon, he’s got a receding hairline!”

“So do you!” Eddie yelled, a bit hysterically.

“Wow, low blow, Eds.”

“Shut the fuck up, dickwad, and for the the last time, _don’t call me_—wait,” he swivelled around to glance at the nurse, who honestly didn’t look that bothered by their bickering, “you’re  releasing me?”

She smiled, “Well, don’t tell me you want to  stay?”

“No, it’s just—“ 

Richie could see the emotions flit like fan blades across his pinched face, waging war against each other as his left eye twitched a little. Richie recognized it as the look Eddie got when he really wanted to so something, but thoughts of germs and disease invaded his mind like an unwelcome relative.  It was the same look Eddie wore that summer every time the Losers would jump into the Quarry. Richie wondered if that’s how he looked right before he kissed too.  His shoulders slumped, sighing in reluctant agreement, and Richie felt the overwhelming urge to pat his back. 

He didn’t.

“Are you sure that’s safe? I mean, I had a  _hole_ through my chest like, three days ago!”

“Oh, you don’t need to tell me. You bled right through your sutures every hour that night,” the nurse said nonchalantly, leaning against the doorframe.

He grimaced, and then Richie _did_ reach out, placing his palm protectively over Eddie’s and squeezing tight, feelings be damned.

“It’s like some kind of miracle the way your wounds closed up so fast, I've never seen anything like it. I don’t know how you did it, but if you’re feeling up to it, you could probably be released tonight.”

Richie’s heart jumped into his throat, looking sidelong at Eddie and scanning his face with fervent twitchiness, gauging his reaction. Of course, he would keep visiting Eddie in the dingy old hospital if he had to, but thought of bringing Eddie home...

Richie swallowed thickly, half expecting Eddie to demand to stay another week.

So, nothing surprised him more when Eddie simply sighed and squeezed Richie’s hand, “Thank God. I don’t know how much more hospital jello I could handle. And do you even  _know_ how much bacteria is in the water here?”

Richie just smiled fondly, feeling his heart flutter open and squeeze shut, like someone stuck a giant Chinese finger trap around his chest. He couldn’t help himself as he leaned over, ruffling Eddie’s hair and crowing, “Cute, cute,  _cute!”_

He almost didn’t mind the flat palm clumsily administered to the side of his face in some drunken semblance of a slap, and his lips twitched against the fingers that grazed over the side of his mouth.

“I’ll come back around noon to give you some instructions on how to care for your wounds at home, and we’ll also run some quick tests on you, Mr. Tozier. Then you’ll be free to go.”

The nurse looked almost regretful to see them leave, if not a bit excited to see them move forward with their lives. Or maybe Richie was just projecting onto her. 

God, Richie’d never once dreamed he’d be projecting on anyone in a nurse’s outfit, and the vision was a truly horrifying thought. Eddie in a nurse’s outfit, however, now  that would be something Richie could get behind...would  _like _ to get behind. Wait. What? In moments of such horrible, floundering confusion, Richie took a shot in the dark, targeting something, anything on that dartboard of wit to distract from the scratchy heat crawling up his cheeks. Like it often does, that dart landed right on the hulking, easy target of Eddie's mom.

“Hopefully Mrs. K didn’t have the syph, huh, Eds?”

Eddie just scowled, punching him in the arm as Richie crowed out, “Yowch! Lay off it you angry elf!”

Eddie was about to respond, face twisted in a sour picture of disdain, the words ghosting over his lips surely scalding. Richie could almost see the smoke billowing out from his flaming ears when the nurse started to let herself out.

“I’ll see you in a few hours, Mr. Tozier, Mr. Kaspbrak,” she paused with her hand on the door, “and try not to be too loud, will you? I’m pretty sure there’s a dude dying down the hall.”

* * *

As it turns out, time flies faster when you’re not cooped up in a tiny, stale room with your childhood best friend and three decades of repressed feelings trying to worm their way out of your mouth.

After a particularly rowdy session of bickering, the nurse came back, insinuating that maybe it was for the best that they let Richie and Eddie roam around. As it just so happens to be, there actually  was a man dying down the hall, and he wasn’t too keen on Richie’s voice being the last thing he heard as Death squeezed the last paltry breath from his shriveled lungs.

_ Weird. _

Richie made sure to voice this as he eagerly lead Eddie down the blinding white corridor, shoes scuffing against the linoleum, Eddie’s hand warm against the inside of his forearm.

“Would that be something if his last words were about me?” he grinned, staggering like a drunk towards the heavy doors. 

Richie had had a growth spurt too fast, too soon, and it was evident in the clumsy way he marionetted his long limbs as he stumbled through life, a shit-eating grin pulled across his face.

Eddie didn’t seem to mind. No, scratch that, Eddie seemed to mind a lot.

“That would not be _remotely_ funny, dipshit!” he squawked, still having the grace to feign disbelief at Richie’s rampant trashmouth, even twenty seven years later, “Nobody wants their last words to be your name!”

Because Richie is very dumb, and only human, and also had a very warm, very attractive Eddie Kaspbrak plastered needily against his side, and was fighting an awkward half-chub that stole all the blood from his brain, he did what he did far too often when he was nervous—

He said the wrong thing.

“My name could have been _your_ last words,” he blurted out, words tumbling after each other like teenagers tumbling out of a closet during a game of Seven Minutes in Heaven.

_ Okay, what the fuck, Richie?  _

That was low, even for him.

Luckily, Eddie didn’t seem to notice, simply bumping his shoulder against Richie’s in a way that he guessed was supposed to be the closest thing to a punch to the arm in the position they were in.

“Keep talking and _your_ last words will be my name. I’ll stab you right here, there’s a scalpel down the hall on that cart right there, and it’s not even disinfected. Did you know that? Hospitals are cess pools, it’s fucking disgusting.”

Richie just watched him rant in a quiet kind of awe, watching his eyebrows send creases across his forehead and tugging at his mouth as he frowned to himself, gripping tighter to his arm.

“Oh yeah, keep talking dirty to me, Dr. K.”

Eddie just shook his head, jostling him again before he leaned heavily against the wall as Richie yanked the heavy door open, grinning.

“After you, m’Spagetti,” he invited, wiggling his eyebrows.

Eddie just rolled his eyes, walking into the shorter corridor, “You’re absolutely insufferable, I hope you know that.”

But as he held on to Richie’s arm again, letting himself be pulled into his side as Richie swung an arm around his back, just like old times— Richie couldn’t help but wonder if there was any real bite behind his words.


	26. Chapter Twenty Six

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long wait! School is really kicking my ass right now and it is...very stressful lmao. But I love you guys and I've already pre-written the next chapter, so you can count on that being out this Thursday!! Thank you for your continual support and I really hope you enjoy this next chapter! <3

They were released at six o’clock on the dot, the long, spindly black arm of the analog clock barely grazing the twelve before they were stumbling out of the stuffy hospital; clumsy, a little drunk off the fresh air, and the week’s long worth of barely-contained hysteria bubbling up to the surface.  The rest of the Losers were waiting in the lobby when Richie and Eddie had emerged from the heavy steel doors, tripping over each other in a tangle of limbs and half-hearted insults as they leaned heavily against each other, both in a kind of blue-purple delirium pulsing in the air like a bruise rising to the surface of your skin.

Also, they were a little drugged out.

“‘Nurse gave me drugs, guys,” Richie slurred in a typical Richie fashion, dropping a heavy arm over Eddie’s shoulder, which he promptly batted off.

“It was a basic sedative, dipshit,” Eddie rolled his eyes, giving in and letting Richie use him as a temporary arm rest as he lolled his head back and laughed. “Do you even know anything about health? It’s a miracle you’re not dead yet.”

Mike grinned at Eddie with a kind of fond recognition— the kind that seized Richie’s heart like an iron glove from the first time they reconvened after those twenty seven years.  Then Mike was stepping forward, breaking through that space and engulfing him in a crushing bear hug, being mindful of the still-healing sutures stitched across hi stomach.

The rest of the Losers followed suit, piling overtop of Eddie in a tangle of arms as he stumbled back and let out a quiet, _‘oof.’_

Richie watched this exchange through a soft haziness and a coiled wave of envy. He gazed upon Eddie’s face, all sharp awkward angles and the softness of his skin where he never quite managed to grow facial hair, even after all those years.  He looked at that and swore he could still see the sunlight bouncing off of his eyes, the slow and easy smile tugging at his cheeks. How long had he longed for this? How many times had he denied himself of this, of this simple touch that was so damn easy for the others in a way he had come to understand, and how, in the same sense, it was so hard for him in a way_ they never would._

How many times had he almost caved at every soft,  _“Richie, Richie—_

Rich.”

“Huh?” he said intelligently, still standing off to the side, watching the Losers hug as his glasses slipped determinedly down his nose.

Then, Eddie held out the arm closest to him, peering up over Bev’s flaming curls, eyes inquisitive and a bit imploring. His quirked smile looked slightly amused, like he’d been on the receiving end of a particularly terrible joke.

“Get in here, Rich,” he said softly, beckoning him.

It was all Richie could take before he was letting himself be pulled into the tangle of limbs, Eddie’s casted arm hooking around his shoulder and draping down over his back in a comfortable weight. He felt a lithe, feminine arm slide around his waist, a strong hand clamp down on his shoulder that could have been Ben, or maybe Bill.

“Good to have you back, Ed,” he heard Beverly say over the deafening pulse of his heart in his ears.

And Richie buried his face in Eddie’s neck, nose brushing against the fine hairs softly lining the nape of it. This was where they were supposed to be— the Lucky Seven, all together. It was always them. It always would be.

Closing his eyes, Richie let himself sink into his friends’ arms and let himself breathe for the first time in what felt like weeks.

* * *

After being kicked out of more than one corridor for disrupting the peace and a strong admonishment from Eddie, the two of them had ended up downstairs in the hospital’s cafeteria, sat at a linoleum grey table, perched on plastic-backed seats.  Eddie poked the cup of jello distastefully—almost as if he was expecting it to jump out at him, with the end of his spoon. His face was drawn into an expression of sheer disgust, mouth pulled into a grimacing frown, eyebrows drawn together, creasing harsh lines over his forehead.  He sighed and rested on his palm, nose scrunched up as he flicked some stray crumbs off the table with a shiver.

“This place is fuckin’ disgusting.”

Richie, who had watched this whole scene play out through a lover’s set of eyes, just grinned, patting the top of his hand reassuringly, “Eat up, Eds. This might be the last time you ever get to eat shitty powdered jello.”

“I  hope it _is_ the last time,” Eddie snapped, pulling a face, “I can practically  feel my tastebuds dying in my mouth, and for once, it’s not just because of you.”

Richie barked out a laugh, slapping a hand to his chest and leaning back, the metal legs of the chair screeching shrilly across the polished floors, “Yowza! Eddie Spaghetti gets off a good one!”

“Yeah, yeah,” he sighed, pushing the jello away with a drag of his knuckles, “I just want some solid food. And don’t call me that.”

“Would I or would I not be your knight in shining armour if I convinced Big Bill to pick us up pizza on the way back?”

Eddie raised his eyebrow, sipping his water and training his narrowed eyes on Richie’s grin over the rim of his glass, “If I say yes, will you shut up and get me something remotely edible?”

“Awe, Eds, you always say the sweetest things.”

“Shut up, Richie. And don’t call me Eds.”

“Yes, your highness,” Richie rolled his eyes as they stood up, walking out of the cafeteria. Hooking an arm around his shoulder, he mussed up his hair, “let’s go, Romeo. Let’s blow this popsicle stand.”

And then there they were, three hours later, rolling down the street with a pamphlet of wound care instructions and five large pizzas between them.  Not the proverbial separating wall that Richie typically envisioned, sure. But sometimes the only thing separating you and your childhood love is repressed feelings and five boxes of pizza, and that’s just how it was. 

They were driving a seven-seater Mike decided to rent from Derry’s unglamorous car dealership, tiring of making the trips with two separate cars. So there they were— Bill at the wheel, Mike right alongside him, navigating and occasionally telling him stories of his time as sherrif in Derry, Bev and Ben stuffed into the back, and Richie and Eddie behind the front seats. The Lucky Seven, all in one car again, and Richie was still complaining about the tight squeeze.

“Are we almost there?” he groaned, shifting uncomfortably, trying to comfortably fold up his legs, to no avail. He shifted them to the left, then to the right, then drew them up to his chest before letting them drop again with an exaggerated sigh.

“God, do you ever shut up for one minute?” Eddie bitched, wriggling closer to the window when Richie wiggled his socked toes threateningly. 

He had never gotten payback for Eddie’s antics in the hammock that summer and it had been a  _really_ long week.

“If you weren’t three feet tall you would get the struggle, Spaghetti.”

“For the last time, I’m 5’9, it’s like, the average height in most of the world,” Eddie rolled his eyes, picking at a stray tear of cardboard on the pizza box. 

He seemed restless, but Richie supposed being confined to a tiny room for over three days would do that to you.

“Is that what you tell your wife?” Richie said, unable to hide the sourness in his tone as he worked a kink out of his lower back, flexing his toes under the back of the front seat.

Eddie stared at him sidelong, brows furrowed into that annoyed horizon line Richie had grown accustomed to looking at over the years, “What is it with you and—“

“Y-Y-Your wife,” Bill interrupted, sparing a glance in the rearview mirror, “aren’t you gonna call her?”

“Wait, you haven’t called your wife yet?” Ben piped up, looking genuinely baffled. Richie rolled his eyes, of_ course_ Ben wouldn’t get it. Him and Beverly were probably holding hands like a couple of middle schoolers in the backseat.

He wondered why that sent such a sting of envy coiling around his heart.

“No, okay? I can’t exactly...I can’t just call her!” 

He looked down at the gold wedding band around his finger, tarnished and fading and so unlike the rest of Eddie. It looked like it was made of cheap gold— the kind you find at kiosks at the mall.  As he twisted it around his finger, it slipped up past the second knuckle, turning like a gear and catching tackily along the warm skin. There wasn’t the telltale white halo of paleness lining the area where the band once sat. Richie could help but feel a kind of sick pride at that, but it was quickly squashed by the demanding, more pressing curiosity that accompanied it.

Eddie clearly took off his ring enough for it to not leave a mark—but _why? _

He didn’t strike Richie as the kind of guy to cheat— he wouldn’t dare risk it with a lumbering wife like that, but if not an affair, what else? Richie wondered offhandedly if Eddie was truly as happy in his marriage as he claimed to be, and it was then he had to look away, training his gaze on the windows of the car, and the world rolling along outside them.

They all had their secrets.

“She’d probably try to make me come home. And I— I mean, shouldn’t I take some time to heal first?”

Bev glanced at Richie, as Bill nodded his head, “Makes sense, Eddie.”

Richie didn’t miss the way he sighed, pushing the ring back over his knuckle with such conviction it would surely leave a bruise, or the way he leaned heavily into the seat, body taut and rigid like stone.  But he let it go, and as Mike engaged Bill in a story about catching Mr. Keene snorting coke at the pharmacy, Richie frowned at the growing bruise on his arm and let himself drift away.

_ Shortly after leaving the cafeteria, they were promptly tracked down by the resident nurse who was beginning to become somewhat of a friend. Of course, they’d only known her for three days, but she seemed to be equal parts amused as she was irked by Richie and his antics, which kind of made her one of them. _

“I don’t suppose you’re trying to leave, Mr Tozier?” she cocked her head, grinning, “You wouldn’t want to miss your shots, would you?”

“Pftt yeah, wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Richie rolled his eyes, unslinging his arm from around Eddie’s shoulder. “Wait—_shots?”_

“Just as a precautionary measure, Mr. Tozier. You were exposed to a lot of bacteria down there,” she pulled a face, “that place is filthy.”

“Believe me, we know,” Eddie grimaced, face looking pinched. Richie wanted to reach out to him, ask if he was okay, but then the nurse was speaking again.

“Horrible place to be, isn’t it? How did a man like you end up in a place like that, don’t tell me you went there willingly.”

“Wandered a little too far, I guess,” Eddie said quickly, and Richie couldn’t help but gape at his swift response. 

Then again, they had gotten pretty good about lying after that summer— they’d turned lying into a career, turned it into a home. And as their empire of falsities grew, so too, did their capacity to construct more.

“Horrible situation, Mr Kaspbrak, I couldn’t even imagine,” she shivered, “that place gives me the creeps. I always avoided it as a girl— this may sound crazy, but I always felt as though something was watching me.”

Eddie and Richie exchanged a look, communicating in that special way they’d learned to do over the years. It was a grim smile, pained eyes, the dull tug of recognition pulling like a faint undertow.

_ It was probably that avoidance _ _,_ they thought, _ that kept the woman alive._

Richie thought of her as a child— easy enough with her youthful face, springy dark red curls and eyes as blue as the sky. He pictured her crouched next to a sewer, reaching a tentative hand down through the grates, an inquisitive look on her face. Because there were voices in the sewers, and that’s the thing about hearing voices in the dead silence_: y_ _ ou can’t help but listen. _

“But enough about me,” she smiled— but it wavered as she looked between the two of them, as if picking up on the tension rolling in like a tide, casting a slight chill to the air. “Are you ready for your shots, Mr. Tozier?”

He sighed shakily, purposely ignoring Eddie’s imploring gaze on the side of his face, ignoring those deep brown eyes, “Ready as I’ll ever be.”

And as she smiled, opening the door, he raked a hand through his hair and grinned, flashing her a smile that didn’t quite meet his eyes, “And please, call me Richie.”

* * *

Here’s the thing: Richie wasn’t scared of needles. 

And he loyally stood by that point, and if need be, it would be a hill he would gladly die on, and by the way the colour was quickly draining from his face, it very well could be.  And he tried telling that to Eddie, give or take a few technicalities, but there he was anyway, perched on the chair beside the table Richie sat on, looking at him like he wasn’t buying it at all.

Richie was about to insist he take a hike when Eddie piped up, his perpetually irked face glaring up at Richie.

“I can’t believe you’re  flirting with my nurse.”

“Can’t believe or don’t want to believe?”

“Isn’t that the same thing?”

“Is it?” Richie asked, raising an eyebrow.

Eddie frowned. Richie shifted awkwardly, wax paper crunching beneath him and the linoleum letting out a dull  thunk as his restless foot connected with the table.

“Anyway, sorry about that, Eds. Didn’t know you had dibs on her.”

Eddie scrunched up his face, looking at the wall, as if he’d rather lament to that than Richie, _“I don’t have_— don’t call me that— I don’t have  dibs , asshole. I have a wife!”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. We all know, Eddie— big, bitchy, kinda looks like your mom?”

“Fuck you, bro,” Eddie said, but it carried no heat. And yet, even still, it stirred something warm in the pit of Richie’ chest.

“Fuck you too, Spaghetti,” he grinned.

“For the last time, Rich, don’t ca—“

“Alright!” the nurse exclaimed, walking in, “are you ready?”

Richie looked at Eddie, who raised an eyebrow in silent question. He felt his heart jump into his throat and swallowed it with a practiced ease, grinning at her.

“You sure you don’t need me to take off my pants?”

* * *

The nurse did not— in fact need—or want, for that matter, Richie to take off his pants, and informed him that she had a particularly lovely girlfriend at home that would second that statement.

Nevertheless, she smiled at Richie, then at Eddie, who honestly looked kind of mortified and regarded her with what he could only describe as a _‘__babies must play_’ look that so often came over his face whenever the Losers took Richie, well,  anywhere . She cleaned his arm with disinfectant, responding to Eddie’s hum of approval with a small smile. Richie could only do the same. Really, it was so like Eddie to lecture doctors about proper wound treatment, and it made his heart swell to think that Eddie even cared enough to have an opinion on something as mundane as to how they give Richie a shot.

“Alright, Richie,” she said, taking a clean—  and sterilized,  twice , at the request of Eddie— needle and hovering it over the inside of his arm, “this is just a basic tetanus shot. We can’t really test for that, and it can’t hurt, given where you’ve been and the fact you haven’t had one since...the summer of 1989, it says here.”

“You haven’t had a tetanus shot since we were  thirteen ?” Eddie admonished, looking genuinely surprised that Richie was still alive.

“Yes, Eddie, it’s not a fucking flu shot, you don’t get it every year.”

Eddie opened his mouth to say something, but he interjected, “And you don’t count because Sonia Kaspbrak was craz—ow!”

It was at that moment that the nurse found an adequate vein, the thin barb of the needle slipping smoothly under his skin with a small twinge of heat, arm going numb at the tight compression of the bandage.  Richie squeezed his eyes shut, feeling a sickly heat crawl up his body. He breathed sharply through his nose, holding his arm out like a limp, detached weight as he tried to grasp onto something solid in the fog of his mind.

And then someone was gripping his knee.

He forced his eyes open— or one of them at least, and stared at the wide-eyes expression of Eddie, following his gaze down to where his hand was resting comfortingly against his lower thigh.  His grip was strong, sure— _grounding._ And it was all Richie needed to come out of that sickly feverish haze and into a more familiar one, where all that existed was Eddie, and all he could feel was love.  He opened his mouth to say something, but then the nurse was retracting the needle with a satisfied grin, unwrapping the compression band and cleaning the wound before bandaging it snugly and slipping the syringe into a little baggie.

“Well, you’re all done. We’re just gonna check your vitals real quick and then we can give Eddie a look-over before we send you on your way.”

Richie hardly heard her, paralyzed staring at the spot where Eddie’s hand still lingered, thumb brushing absentmindedly over the knee of his jeans. As if on cue, Eddie realized what he was doing, retracting his hand with a slight blush.

The nurse placed a stethoscope at the small of his back. “Breathe in for me, Richie,” she instructed as Richie forced in a shaky inhale, “and out.”

She moved the cool metal up between his shoulder blades, and then placed it right over his heart.

“Your hair,” Eddie said suddenly, smiling a bit wryly.

“What about my hair?” Richie managed to choke out, still feeling the ghost of his touch on his thigh where Eddie’s palm had been moments earlier.

_ Jesus Christ, Eds, are you trying to kill me?” _

Apparently, he was, because he leaned over, brushing a stray curl off his forehead, to no avail as it fell right back into place. “It looks really stupid.”

And of course, because God hates Richie, the nurse pulled her stethoscope away and said, “Well, your vitals look good, but your heart is beating awfully fast. Are you sure you’re feeling alright?”

* * *

Richie didn’t have much time to dwell on that moment of embarrassment in the humiliation mausoleum that was his life because it was drowned out by the more pressing though that  Eddie needed him.

He should have remembered— should have known. Eddie had always hated needles as a kid, bursting into tears on one, (unfortunately), memorable occasion as he told the Losers he was due for a tetanus shot.  Richie remembered awkwardly standing there as the rest of the Losers furiously tried to console him, and he wasn’t much more of a help now as Eddie squeezed his hand in a death-grip, knuckles going white as he forced his eyes shut.

“Jeez, Eds, you’re like a woman in labour,” Richie cracked nervously, feeling his fingers go numb under Eddie’s hold. The pressure sent a dull jolt of pain through his own heavy arm, but he didn’t dare let go.

“I swear to God, Richie, I will kill you if you don’t shut up right now,” Eddie managed, not even bothering to reprimand him for the nickname, face paling as he bit his lip.

“Well this time I’m actually scared of your death threats because they have step-stools here and now you could actually reach my neck.”

Eddie shook his head, and Richie guessed he would be rolling his eyes if they weren’t already firmly screwed shut.

“Beep beep, Richie,” he muttered, but he didn’t miss the way Eddie held on tighter.

Swallowing thickly, Richie squeezed back and tried not to think about what a loss it would be when Eddie finally came to his senses and decided to let go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was actually a part of a longer chapter that I broke into two just for better scheduling, so the next part will be out on Thursday, and it only gets more Reddie-intensive, so rest assured, I will be delivering that sweet, sweet fan service. Also Nurse Joyce is our #1 lesbian icon, I'm glad you guys are liking her.
> 
> And, as always, feel free to leave a comment below and request something you'd like to see in my story, I'm always looking to please ;)


	27. Chapter Twenty Seven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can you believe I had most of this sitting in my notes all week and didn't post it sooner? I've been absolutely loaded with homework the past few weeks, it's insane. I just finished a 4 foot tall painting for my art class and I've never been more relieved. Anywho, enjoy this 4.5k chapter, and I'll do my absolute best to post these updates as frequently as possible. <3

The rest, as promised by their well-meaning nurse, who’s name—as it turned out, was Joyce— promised.

They had sat in a waiting room after, Eddie frowning as he scrolled through a seemingly endless inbox of emails— each one looking more deathly boring than the last, while Richie played phone-tag with the Losers, trying to arrange plans to be picked up.  It was only thirty minutes later before they were being called back into the room, given clean bills of health and a stack of instructions as wide and endless as the space Richie was currently trying to force between them.

“You’re like a robot now, dude. Then when you malfunction in a week, I’ll see if we can trade you in for a newer model.”

Eddie rolled his eyes, taking the pamphlets with an appreciative glance at the nurse, “Does  your model come with better jokes or just a new hairline?”

“Yowza!” Richie whistled, clapping him on the back, carefully avoiding any sore areas, “You wound me, Spaghetti.

“Ignore him, he’s an idiot,” Eddie explained to Joyce, making his way towards the door.

“The hits just keep on coming. Prison changed you, Eds,” Richie said as morosely as he could manage, watching him slip into the corridor and lazily following.

Joyce stopped him, smiling, “I trust you’ll take good care of him. Be sure he recovers well, and don’t hesitate to call if anything comes up.”

Richie nodded, trying not to linger on the fact she assumed  he would mainly be taking care of Eddie, or what that might insinuate— or even the pressing internal question_ if_ he would end up doing that.

“And,” she added, looking thoughtful as she placed a friendly hand on his shoulder, “good luck.”

And then, with a wink, she was gone, leaving Richie, once again, wondering what the hell _that_ was supposed to mean.

* * *

Richie was roused from his daydreams when Bill pulled up the familiar driveway of his childhood home— white-grey and peeling like an onion— or maybe a scab.

It was no coincidence when Richie, in turn, felt his eyes begin to water.

He stepped out of the car, making no move or offer to grab any of the pizza boxes, striding ahead onto his porch, where his mother’s old wicker chair still sat nestled under the trellis.  He dimly noted the cigarette burn mark etched into the side of the house where he had stubbed it out days before.

_ “Every second we’re not all together again is another second he’s down there alone.” _

He shivered, pulling his face into a painful grin. He spread his arms wide, turning around pointedly, “Well? Take it all in. Welcome to the Tozier abode!”

Bill, carrying three of the pizza boxes, shook his head, pushing past him and through the front door. Mike paused at the bottom of the steps and looked up contemplatively.

“Nice place, Richie,” he said kindly.

The next voice wasn’t so gracious.

“I cannot _believe_ the state you keep this place in!” Eddie admonished, picking up a stray beer can, half-crushed and tacky with old liquor around the rim. “You stay here for what, two weeks and you _already_ destroy it?”

“Three weeks,” Richie corrected tersely.  _ And nearly five days _ _,_ he finished in his mind, feeling his stomach constrict uncomfortably. 

“Well, I for one, love it,” Beverly smiled, patting him on the shoulder as she started to follow Bill into the house, “it looks very...Richie.”

“Your house always had beautiful architecture,” Ben offered, looking up at the white exterior, which too, was beginning to peel.

“Alright, get in here, Losers, I’m starving!” Bill called from inside.

And they followed, because when Big Bill says something, you listen.

* * *

After a few distasteful comments from Eddie about the state of Richie’s house, they sat around the dinner table, tucking into five boxes of pizza and the better half of Richie’s alcohol cabinet

“All I’m saying is that it would be nice to have a happy ending in one of your stories,” Beverly said, pointing an accusatory slice of cheese pizza at Bill.

“It’s not my fault!” he deflected, taking a sip of beer, “They just...end up with dark endings. And my manager—“

“—_Wants you to write better endings_, yeah, we know,” Richie finished, turning to Eddie.

“Hey, you doing alright?”

His appetite seemed to be good— and he couldn’t tell if that was surprising or not, given the weird mix of events that had transpired over the past few days. There comes a very specific point in absurdity where no natural reasoning of logic applies, and Richie was staring dumbfounded at the precipice of it.

“I’m eating actual food for the first time in weeks, what do you think, dickhead?”

But there was a smile in those words, and that was enough to still Richie’s nerves for a moment, emboldened enough by the slow drip of alcohol through his veins to stare a little longer at Eddie. And maybe it was that that encouraged him to open his mouth.

“Hey, Eds—“

“There is no way you could outdrink me!” Beverly suddenly piped up, loud and a little loose from the wine she had been nursing for the past half hour.

“Oh y-y-yeah?” Bill challenged, leaning forward over the table.

“Yeah! Don’t even try to challenge Ben though, he prefers those fruity little wines, can you believe it?”

The group erupted into drunken cheers, broken up by the unheard voice of Ben interjecting, “I can totally drink, she’s lying!”

“Oh yeah? Prove it, Benny.”

“You’re on, Mikey.”

“Okay, Beverly said, giggling as she leaned over the table, hands cupping the neck of the wine glass, where a purple-red drop was careening down the surface, “but I wanna challenge Richie. He used to be able to outdrink all of us!”

Richie shrugged, remembering the time they had snuck a six pack and a few cheap bottles of wine out of their parents’ stash, getting drunk in the clubhouse. Or in Ben and Richie’s case— sick.

Eddie pulled a face, “Ugh. I remember that. You got hammered and then upchucked into the weeds.”

_ “ After _ _,”_ Richie clarified, “the rest of the Losers were already gone.”

“I know,” he grimaced, “but I saw. It was disgusting— you just hurled right into the Barrens. We spent the whole summer down there, Richie!”

“Alright, fine, Eds. You’re just mad because I almost ralphed on your little white sneakers.”

“My mom would have killed me!” he protested, voice sounding as shrill as it had when they were kids, and for a moment, it was like Richie was thirteen again, getting yelled at by Eddie for getting drunk.

_ “So irresponsible, Richie. This is why my mom doesn’t let me fucking hang out with you, I can’t believe you—“ _

An amused grin crawled up Richie’s face, and with it, horrifyingly, a twinge of aching fondness.

“Alright,” he said, swallowing, “let’s get wasted.”

* * *

The Losers were sprawled haphazardly across Richie’s living room floor like discarded children’s toys, all ragdoll limbs and drooping eyes, the slow buzz of alcohol easing them into drowsy slumber.

Richie, however, was wide awake.

Eddie was passed out on the couch beside him, knees drawn up to his chest and a pillow tucked firmly under his chin, arms wound tightly around it. Pale moonlight cast in through the windows, sending a streak of whiteness over his eyelid in an almost Bowie-like fashion.  His lip twitched, as if he was chewing out Richie in his sleep. That, paired with the way his hair was falling softly against his face without the strict constraint of gel was enough to instil Richie with the desperate need to get up, to gather whatever semblance of his own sanity he had left before he lost it gazing at the face of the man he loved, but very well could never have.

He carefully extracted himself from the tangle of limbs, the assault of hands as Beverly’s arm slung over his own, the other pressed to her forehead like a fainting maiden, fiery hair fanning out onto the pillow behind her, as if she was falling. 

He quietly slid open the sliding glass door of the back porch, slipping out into the cool night and fumbling for a cigarette. 

Sure enough, the lighter was tucked snugly against his side, along with a few loose in his pocket. He brought both up to his mouth, letting the paper wet in the corner of his mouth as he cupped a hand around the end, sparking a small blue flame.  A shaky breath was not so much deflated, as it had been _ripped_ out of Richie’s chest, sending a splutter of ash grey smoke winding up towards the sky, a dull, hacking cough leaving his throat as a white cloud poured out between his trembling lips.  His hand quivered, and he raked it through his hair, disturbing several strands that had been plastered to his forehead with sweat. The night was cool— a slight breeze to the air that made Richie briefly consider going inside for a jacket.

He hadn’t quite decided yet when he heard the sound of the door sliding open, quiet footfalls behind him, and a voice he would recognize any day.

“Those things are gonna kill ya, Rich,” Eddie chastened him softly, sidling up next to him.

Richie let out a shallow breath, lungs burning slightly from the cool air and the scratchiness crawling up his throat as he realized: here Eddie was, standing on his back porch in pyjamas far too big for him— _Richie’s _ pyjamas, with a tired smile on his face as he said the words Richie had been longing to hear for the past month.  He was right there, where Richie had been longing him to be ever since he took his last shuddering breath, and he couldn’t even bring himself to tell Eddie how he feels.

He huffed out something like a laugh, smoke wisping over his lips as he brought the smoldering cigarette down to his side, tilting his head towards the sky.

“I think I’ll take my chances.”

“Yeah, well, if you keep being an idiot, I might get to you before the lung cancer does.”

“Like I said,” Richie continued, casting him a sidelong glance and a grin, letting his eyes fall upon Eddie for the first time since he’d stepped outside. “I’ll take my chances.”

_“God_, you’re annoying,” he huffed in response, “I almost forgot how annoying you were.”

“Awe, Eds, you sure know how to make a girl blush.”

“Shut up, Richie. Hand me that cigarette.”

Maybe it was the forceful tone of his voice, the tremble in his hands, or the overwhelming reality that Eddie was here and bitching at him like nothing had changed— and yet, there was a certain air to the night that made him believe everything had. Regardless, he found himself handing Eddie the cigarette, which he took with a flourish, shaking his head as he brought it up to his lips, “And don’t call me Eds.”

Richie was transfixed— almost paralyzed in the way pure white billowed through his parted lips as they twisted into a disapproving frown, eyebrows knitting together. Here he was, muttering the same words that he had been saying since they were thirteen and Richie had taken a niche liking to driving Eddie up the wall, or more specifically, just Eddie in  _general_.  Here he was, every bit the same person Richie had fallen in love with the summer of 1989—only he was different, too. _Stronger. _Yes, even with a gaping hole through his chest, Eddie was stronger than he’d ever been, looking over the blurry end of the horizon with a look of steely determination Richie’d never fully seen.

Sandbox love never dies, and the warmth spreading across his chest as he watched Eddie exist in the same space as him, breathe the same air— proved that to be true. But apparently, along with it, neither did the brimming curiosity that tugged at Richie’s gut whenever Eddie’s shorts hiked up a little too high up the pale expanse of his thighs, or now, as he watched that familiar mantra of,  _ ‘shut up, Richie _ _,’_ ghost over his lips, smoke escaping like the phantom itself, leaving Richie frozen within his own skin.

It was a lot to take in. 

So, Richie said nothing as he accepted the cigarette Eddie handed back, letting out a dry cough as he did. Shakily, he brought it to his own lips again.

_ “That’s basically an indirect kiss,”  _ the words he blurted out to Eddie one confused, hazy summer rang in his mind.

Shivering, he tugged his arms tighter around himself—where goosebumps had begun to form, and pushed the thought away.  But like a corpse rousing from its eternal sleep as someone walks over its grave, or like the ache in your knees just before it rains, Eddie caught on to Richie’s train of thought, even as it departed.

“God, we haven’t done this forever,” he huffed, which sounded something like a laugh. “It’s been, what...”

“Almost twenty seven years,” Richie offered, blowing a plume of smoke absentmindedly into the sky.

“Yeah,” Eddie shivered, hugging his arms close to his chest. “I still hate those things.”

He dipped his head closer to his shirt’s neckline and distantly, Richie wondered if he was cold, or just shell-shocked at the jarring familiarity. Eddie had always been cold, prompting many internal struggles as Richie fought the almost overwhelming urge to offer up his jacket.  But he had never quite found the right moment to, and now, bare-armed in the coolness of the night, his heart a throbbing ache in his chest, he had nothing to offer but a longing gaze and so many unsaid words left to die on his tongue.  Richie wondered what it would feel like to hold him, feel his cold nose brush against the junction of his neck and shoulder, small hands gripping the back of his shirt as fiercely as they had the day Richie left. What it would feel like to hold him back even tighter, to fist a hand through his hair and whisper the promise he had always meant to keep:

_ " I’ll never let you go again, Eds.” _

He wondered, not for the first time, and not for the last, what it would feel like to feel that steady, warm pulse thrum beneath his skin, feel his sweet breath fan over his cheek as he heard the soft, blessed inhales as Eddie lived and breathed in his space.

That’s all he’d ever wanted.

There, in that hazy warmth of knowing, Richie came to one of life’s greatest truths. It was never the fear of finding something worth holding into, he thought, that frightened people. But rather, the overlooming threat of eventually having to let go, and how you would survive without it.  Richie took another drag, teeth wearing indents into the pliant paper— a nervous habit of his, usually making an appearance as a kid when he got too high and had desperately, (and often fruitlessly), trying to quell his shaky paranoia with a smoke.

If Eddie noticed, he didn’t say a word. He just laughed— cutting clear and loud into the dead silence of the night.

“Do you— oh _God_. Do you remember that time as kids when my mom almost caught us smoking?”

Inadvertently, Richie found a smile rising to his own face, and with it, a laugh of his own that tumbled out of his mouth clumsily, mindlessly, more easily than Richie could remember in the past twenty seven years.

“Oh, how could I forget? It was—

_ —a clear summer night, just one year after the June of 1989. _

The Losers Club had mostly disbanded by that point; Beverly going to live with an aunt out of state, Ben precoccupied with his architecture program and the deep loss of his first love, Mike busy as ever on the farm. It was just the original four now, just as it had begun, though Bill’s parents would drag him out of Derry not a year later, a shaken Stan following close in tow.  But for that moment, things were exactly as they started, and exactly where they were always meant to end; with Richie and Eddie, and the eternal underlying promise of  _ RichieAndEddie . _

And for that moment, as Richie climbed in through Eddie’s window, that had been enough.

“Hiya, Eds,” he grinned, mouth quirking up as Eddie’s eyes bulged out of his head, the flat of his palm pressed flush against his chest, where— if the rising blush to his face was any indication, his heart was racing under his skin.

_“Jesus!”_ he gasped quietly, casting a nervous glance at his closed bedroom door, and they paused for a moment, listening for the telltale sound of an estranged Sonia Kaspbrak rushing to the aid of her son in light of fabricated danger, the likes of which only she could understand.

When their ears fell on silence, Eddie breathed a sigh of relief and continued.

“What the fuck are you doing here, Rich?” he hissed, glaring up at him with crossed arms and a stubborn pout, which— _fuck_, Richie would never admit, was_ cute._

_ Cute, cute, cute! _

“Well, actually, I came for your mom—“ Richie started, pushing his glasses up with his knuckle, only to be shoved back towards the window by Eddie’s hands.

“Okay, bye Richie—“

“Eds, wait, wait!” he protested, gripping his shoulders, where Eddie’s hands were firmly planted as he drove Richie back across the carpet.

He tried not to blush as he fingers closed around Eddie’s knuckles, and channelled the fluttery feeling spreading inside his heart into a boisterous grin, wiggling his eyebrows.

“I come in peace. And,” he said, reaching into his pocket, “with gifts.”

Eddie watched him silently as he pulled a cigarette from his pocket, holding it up between them with a triumphant grin as Eddie released him, fumbling for a lighter, flicking the metal cap.

“Really?” he bitched, voice shrill and whiny, “You came here just to smoke?”

He tried to come across as displeased, but Richie didn’t miss the way his eyes zeroed in on the drag, and it sent a coil of heat through his lower stomach as he imagined that Eddie was staring at his lips, and not the cigarette nursed between them.

“Not just for that,” Richie said, focusing his attention on lighting the butt. It was always easier to be honest when his eyes were anywhere else but Eddie. “I can’t just want to hang out with my little Eddie Spaghetti?”

Eddie looked pleased, almost preening at the suggested praise. “Don’t call me that,” he said, but moved to sit next to Richie on the windowsill.

“You love it,” Richie grinned around a cloud of smoke, eyes drooping behind those stupid coke-bottle glasses, “you hardly even acknowledged when I called you ‘Eds.’ I think you’re going soft on me.”

“You wish,” Eddie scoffed, watching the orange spark at the smoldering end of the cigarette, almost transfixed.

“You want a drag?” Richie offered suddenly, the proposition so absurd without context. Eddie was a hypochondriac— an  _ asthmatic _ hypochondriac at that. 

A mama’s boy with no semblance of rebellion on his horizon before a year ago. Eddie wore the frail and unsteady skin of someone who was only now just beginning to realize his own autonomy, and wasn’t quite sure what to do with it.  Richie didn’t know what was more ridiculous; the fact he even asked in the first place, or the fact Eddie actually _agreed._

“Fine,” he huffed, almost like a whisper, and it was Richie’s turn to have bulging eyes. 

“Are you serious? Eddie—“

“I said,” he huffed, leaning half into Richie’s lap to snag it from his hand, settling back down with his back against the smooth white sill, “give it. God, you’re so annoying sometimes.”

And as Richie watched him bring the cigarette to his lips in the spot where Richie’s mouth had been moments before, clean little hands wrapping around the paper as he took an indignant huff, he felt the Earth come to a jarring halt on its axis.

_ Jesus Christ. _

And then Eddie was spluttering, face twisted into disgust, all but shoving the drag back into Richie’s hands as he laughed silently, revelling the quiet fuming of the small boy beside him.

“Oh,  _ Eds _ _,_” he started, voice dripping with amusement.

_“Don’t,”_ he spoke tersely, biting at his bottom lip.

“That was adorable,” he crooned, leaning over to pinch his cheek,_ “cute, cute, cute!”_

“Richie! Get off of me!” he protested, and Richie would have, really, had Eddie not said that to begin with.

But now that the idea was planted into his head, it ran wild in his mind and crossed the barrier over to his limbs as he rolled atop of Eddie, pinning his arms down to the carpeted floor, grinning down at him.

“Oh my God, you’re so annoying, I hate you and your stupid shitty cigarettes and—“

He cut himself off as Richie leaned forward, down and into his space, jet black hair brushing over his forehead as Richie brought their faces mere inches apart. 

“Richie—“ he started, wide-eyed a unmoving, eyes flicking an erratic path from his eyes to his lips, which,  fuck — Richie would definitely be thinking about later.

And then he was lining up their lips, just short of two inches from touching, and blowing a thick cloud of smoke into Eddie’s mouth. Eddie watched through hazed eyes as Richie yawned the white rivulets of ash between his lips, looking stunned.  And then he was inhaling, softly, tentatively, and Richie was pulling away, just a little, and his grip loosened on Eddie’s wrists.

_“Richie—“_ he breathed, pupils blown out and unfocused as they flitted between Richie’s own and his lips.

And then there were distant heavy footsteps, and the shrill call of, _“Eddie-Bear, is that you?”_

And just like that, Eddie was up, pushing Richie off of him and towards the window with impressive force, Richie stumbling towards the open sill and gripping it as he swung a leg over, grinning at Eddie.

“Richie!  _ Go _ _!”_ he hissed, looking back frantically at his door.

And then Richie was hauling himself over and onto the roof, ducking along the side of the house just as Sonia opened Eddie’s door. He slid down towards the eaves, pulling himself over the edge of the squat house and clambering down into the grass.  And then he just lay there in the cold, dewy lawn, scratchy against his bare arms, where week-old scabs were still healing behind Band-Aids Eddie meticulously plastered across his skin— and he  _ laughed .  _ Mindlessly and a bit hysterically, he laughed, body wracked by trembles as the seamless beginnings and ends of euphoria crawled up his chest, burning his cheeks and aching his jaw as he laid in the grass and the dead centre of his youth— the childhood that built him, and the future that would drag him endlessly away.

Richie had murmured, there in that moment, sprawled across Sonia Kaspbrak’s lawn, for the first time, “I love him,” he let his cheek press against the grass, felt the dew brush against his ear. “I love him. God help me, I _love_ him.”

And then he was laughing again, pulling himself up as Sonia’s slippered feet thundered towards the back door. And Richie was running down the sprawling streets of Derry, a distinct, youthful burn in his lungs and exhilarated tears pricking in his eyes. 

_The next day, Eddie had approached him at school, eyebrows drawn and face a little flushed as he squeaked,  “My mom was so—_

—mad,” Eddie huffed, crossing his arms as the memory flooded back, Richie narrating it perfectly, (minus a few little details that Eddie didn’t need to remember).

“Of course she was, finding her little Eddie-Bear playing hockey tonsil with the Devil.”

“We were_ not_ playing hockey ton—“ Eddie started, rolling his eyes, before coming to a halting stop, face flushing in the pale moonlight, “oh, you meant the cigarette.”

Richie just laughed because _ what the fuck, was Eddie trying to kill him? _ And he let the moment pass, stalking a path outwards until it disappeared, like clouds rolling over the horizon.

“God, that was hilarious. Your mom hated me.”

“It was _so_ not funny,” Eddie protested, crossing his arms and glaring at him.

“Oh it_ so_ was ,” Richie insisted, quirking a brow.

Eddie just rolled his eyes, letting his shoulders slump in some kind of defeat. And then he was touching Richie’s shoulder, hand lingering for a moment, breath fanning over Richie’s neck.

“Goodnight, Rich,” he said softly.

And then he turned on his heel, softly sliding the door open and closing it behind him, leaving Richie alone on the back porch. He took in a shaky breath, watching the still inky darkness melt into the horizon of trees. For a few minutes, he just stood, overwhelmed with a kind of fuzzy warmth that spread from his cheeks to his toes. He was roused out of that comfortable oblivion, however, when he heard a distant yell, seemingly coming from the Canal. Almost as if someone was in there, trapped.

_ Waiting . _

He froze, keeping a steely gaze on the unmoving horizon, a sickly heat crashing over him in a stifling wave. But the sound was gone, replaced by the distant brush of wind rustling through the trees.

“Jesus, I really need to get some sleep,” he muttered.

And then he was stubbing out his cigarette, sliding open the screen door. Taking one last look over the horizon, he shook his head, crawling back to his spot on the floor. Above him, Eddie snored softly.

Squeezing his eyes shut, Richie forced himself into a restless sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stan the Mannnnn,,,, how we miss you so. Thoughts? Feelings? Feel free to yell at me in the comments, I love it, you funky little reddie stans.
> 
> Also- tumblr has groupchats now! I'm actually in a few- 'the losers be on vacation' and 'reddie gays.' and started my own groupchat called 'Eddie (Since You've Been Gone).' You can find it on tumblr, feel free to join! We can talk about the story, you can ask me anything, ask for writing advice, share your fics with me, talk about reddie, anything you want! Let me know in the comments if you're interested in joining, I can also add you if you drop your tumblr username. :D
> 
> Love you guys, and can't wait to see you in the groupchat ;)


	28. Chapter Twenty Eight

When Stanley Uris woke up, the first thing he noticed, was that it was dark.

The darkness was almost overwhelming, outreaching the blurry bounds of those four walls like the twisted shadow of a barren tree on cold, dead, frozen ground. It ebbed and flowed and spilled over into the dim hallway like an overturned bottle of ink, or an oil barrel bleeding into the ocean’s waves. It spread like a mold, or some kind of dank rot.  The rot, as it turns out, was ever-so-present too, clinging to the walls and vomiting across the linoleum floor in between grooves of grout, separating cracked bath tiles, glue that held them together tacky with age.  Through the shrill ringing in his ears, he was able to make out afaint gargling sound, like a broken pipe belching up sewage. Fitting, because that’s exactly what it was.

The water in his bath turned a stomach-churning grey as the drain moaned, spluttering congealed bits of grime and blood and whatever remains in backed-up water pipes, into the tub, painting the smooth marble walls with a layer of muck.  The water lapped at his thighs, his arms once, twice, sickly warm contents burning his pale skin, sending a hot, feverish sheen of sweat across his chest, where, underneath, his heart gave one weak twitch before bursting alive behind his ribs.

Stanley opened up his mouth, and began to scream.

* * *

When he finally managed to pull himself from the slick tub, he was trembling, his body one giant goosebump as he shakily reached for the white towel slung over the lip of the bath, holding it over him with a rigid grip. His jaw was locked and aching like a creaky vise, small whimpers escaping it with each painful step forward.

He braced himself against the countertop, staring at that reflection, unreconcible with himself, with that pallid face, those dark bruises lining his eyes, the thick layer of grime coating his skin.  His stomach lurched like a car coming to a screeching halt, and along with it, a fuzzy dizziness as he gagged dryly into the ceramic bowl of the sink.  Spluttering out some kind of black goo, he fisted a hand across his mouth, staggering towards the door, slightly ajar and rusted at the hinges. Behind him, a rat scurried out from under a cabinet, disappearing into some hole in the wall behind the toilet.  He had only made it three steps beyond the doorjamb when it happened. With a child’s eye of devotion and its slightly skewed axis of importance, he noticed the man before the room. 

The face that bore down on his own was stern. Severe. Drawn tight like the angry hand of an artist, like violent red streaks painted across a canvas with a flourish, or like curtains drawn hastily closed, like a man shutting out the world.  It held the tight-lipped expression of a man unsatisfied with life’s way of tiptoeing around the rather rigid commandments he attempted to implement. 

_Don’t you know__,_ Stanley wanted to ask,  _haven’t you learned? _

_The world doesn’t listen, _ Stanley learned for the first time when he looked into those cold, dead, white eyes of the woman in the painting as she rose above him like a spider trailing its prey. There are rules that can be broken, and they break all the time. _The world is dirty, and you can never quite rid of the blood on your hands— shrug off the shadows that envelope you in the night. _ Every night, you slip into your pressed white sheets in your silken pyjamas and hug a pillow to your chest that smells faintly of flowers, and you hug your mother and bury your face in her breasts and feel her soft hair graze your cheek, and you hold your Torah to your chest and recite words like they mean anything, but in the end, you are still coming home to a bed of lies.

_The world doesn’t listen_, Stanley realized with an unbridled horror as the woman in the painting gained on him, curling around his body with some kind of serpentine gauntness, grinning all the same. As if she couldn’t see the hollows of her cheeks, as if she didn’t know she was a blatant  offence to every law that governed Stanley’s world.

_The world does listen_, he realized with some kind of sickening terror. The revelation creeped in with a sickly warmth, like the cool, clammy grip of a nightmare not yet put to rest. It dawned on him as he felt the grime cling to his skin beneath his shirt cuffs, the David star blinking accusatorily at him between the man’s chest. Perhaps Stanley best understood that twenty seven years ago, a just-barely-twelve-year-old faced with a monster so grosteque, so unnatural, that it would haunt him for the rest of his trepid life. The world listens , and that should scare you the most. No evil arises from complete oblivion, Stanley thought, call it baser nature or whatever you want, but there is considerable intelligence in knowing the shadows that most desperately call to people.

_ And how can a person go on knowing that? _

The face sighed at him, twitched where he saw his hands quiver at the hem of the bath towel drawn tightly around his chest.

“You’re late, Stanley,” he disgraced through pursed lips, shoving a pressed linen suit into his arms. 

Atop the bundle of fabric sat a navy blue yarmulke, white star of David glaring up at him imploringly.

“Put this on,” he ordered, eyes cold as steel as he turned away. He paused in the corridor, pivoting on his heel, the sound deafening against the hardwood floors. 

_ “How is it going to look? The rabbi’s son, late to his own Bat Mitzvah.” _

Letting out a ragged, hushed breath, Stanley shakily let the towel drop, pulling on the linen suit as the sound of his father’s footsteps disappeared down the hall. 

* * *

He walked down the dim corridor, pale light filtering in through large stained glass windows at the height of the ceiling. The shadows lurched at him, like the cold, searing grip of fear. On the wall, the Modigliani painting bore down at him through the pure whites of her eyes, smile crooked and  wrong.

His hands trembled where they hung at his sides, “I’m not fucking scared of you,” he choked out.

The woman in the painting just smiled, and like sunlight hitting the winter snow, something seemed to glimmer behind that blank, pale stare. Jagged teeth gleamed, like semblances of the white-picket fence life Stan was deprived of from the moment he saw her horrid face and for the first time in his life, swallowed the bitter medicine of pure, unadulterated fear.  Stanley Uris’s childhood ended with her, some remnants of it still swimming in that dead stare, twinkling like fresh tears pooling in a child’s eyes, or like a dying star billions of lightyears away. And now, Stanley knew, it was time to put it to rest.

Taking a shaky breath and prying his eyes from the painting, he took a step forward, and moved on. 

The hall, as it turned out just lead to another room. The tunnels of the sewers were serpentine, winding and twisting senselessly, it hurt Stanley’s already pounding head to try and decipher it, so he didn’t, turning to the chestnut door in front of him. 

_ Maybe somethings are better off not known. _

Hanging off the marbled would set a small marquee sign: 

_ “STANLEY URIS: 10 AM ” _

With trembling hands and a fresh sore but in inches lower lip, where his teeth were worrying at it listlessly, he took a shuddering breath, and walked through the door, instantly greeted by the bassy sound of organ music, and a startlingly familiar voice.

_ “Bar’chu et— A—Adonai...ham’vorach. Baruch...Adonai ham-vorach l’olam...” _

_“—Va-ed. Baruch atah, Adonai,”_ his father finished, staring sternly down at him from where he was situated amongst the balcony, “You’re not studying, Stanley. How’s it going to look? The rabbi’s son can’t finish his own Torah reading.”

Stanley watched the young boy stare down at his Torah— flipped comically upside down, like a indication of what was to come; how his life would pivot to a dizzying halt at that very moment. He watched, and he stayed quiet.

“Take the book to my office, you’re obviously not using it.”

And just like that, like a child burned from the hot stroke of a palm coming across his face, or startled by the blisters bubbling up to the surface of his wrists, where a belt had been moments before, Stanley felt himself leap out of the pew he was seated in, only to be stopped by a sharp hand.

“No,” the voice said simply, and Stan’s breath all but left his lungs, punched out of him in shuddering, ragged breaths, a fire burning in his nose and crawling up his throat. The smile was imploring, hypnotizing. 

_Like he could tell anyone to do anything, and they would just follow__,_ Eddie’s words rung in his ears, just as clear as they had been all those years ago, huddled in the Barrens.  _What kind of power was that?_

_“Bill,”_ he breathed, hating how it sounded more like a sob.

“D-D-Don’t, Stanley.” 

The last two syllables were breathed in almost a whisper, like he was going to fade, like tumbleweeds blown away by a hot breeze. _Don’t go_, Stanley almost said, and then the voice got louder, clearer, and as he stared into the eyes of that boy helplessly uncovered from his past, he found himself wishing that he would. But that’s the thing— you can’t half-wish for someone’s presence. You’ll only be left with a fragmented illusion of whatever they were, never fully there. And like glass shattering into a million pieces, sometimes those fragments  cut.

“D-Don’t go, S-S-Stan,” his eyes deepening the way they had that day in the Barrens, right before he took a jagged piece of glass to his palm.

_ "S-S-Swear on it.” _

Stanley knew as he crumpled under that gaze, that he was making another promise, as silent as it was. Stan’s will went quietly into the night, but it never walked alone.

“You can’t c-c-change it,” he said softly.

He watched his younger self grip the Torah in sweaty palms, stepping guiltily off the pedestal, out of the spotlight, and slip into his father’s dark office, where he knew, just moments later, his life would have been changed forever. _Don’t go, _ he wanted to plead,  _keep your Torah, read it well. Study it, memorize it, beg to leave town, whatever it takes. But don’t let yourself see what you can never unsee, don’t let anything change._

But it was too late, and as he disappeared from sight, the organ music began once again, and he was being urged out of his pew.

“Well, g-g-go on. S-S-Stan,” Bill said, pushing him upright, “we’ve all been w-w-waiting.”

Sure enough, amongst the cold expressions spotted in the pews, sat all of the Losers, on opposite sides with only a few feet between them, but seemingly miles apart. The cool rift was palpable in the air, and they all stared blankly at him, like they weren’t entirely there.

“Come on, Stanley,” his father said as he stepped up to the podium, Torah nestled on a small brown table, “read your Torah for everyone. Go on.”

His eyes were black, dripping with some kind of goo, similar to the one Eddie had spat out at the Neibolt house as kids, like some kind of raw sewage, or liquid tar. It dripped from his lips, running down his chin and staining a small circle of grey into his cotton dress shirt.  Stanley watched the room, those yellow lights and high ceilings, those blank eyes boring a hole into his soul.  With trembling hands, he gripped the cool metal of the microphone as it let out a shrill squawk, looking over the mahogany banister and at the row of people watching him. He fumbled with the Torah, reading that old scripture through the terrified eyes of someone who didn’t quite know how to go back to what he once called home.

And then he met a set of eyes, right in the back row. The only ones hidden behind spectacles, black-rimmed and comically large, those blue eyes peering up at him, seeming to twinkle, though it could have just been the light winking off his glasses frames.

_"Knock ‘em dead, Stan the Man,"_ he mouthed, grinning. 

And that was all Stan needed before he was continuing, closing the Torah with a deafening, guilty_ thud_, the sound echoing off the beams of the room.

“Today,” he breathed, voice shaky as the ground below him. He gripped the microphone tighter, “I’m supposed to become a man.”

He looked over at Richie, who was beaming, sending vigorous thumbs up. Eddie, who was sitting just one pew over, seemed to be looking at him fondly, there was no doubt about it. And then he turned to Stan with a small smile, and it got a little easier for the next words to leave his mouth.

“It’s funny though. Everyone, I think, has some memories they’re prouder of than others, right? And, maybe that’s why change is so scary. ‘Cause the things we wish we could leave behind, the whispers we wish we could silence...t he nightmares we most wanna wake up from...” 

Memories of Bill collapsed in the sewers, Georgie’s raincoat clutched to his chest, flooded his mind. He could almost feel the cool press of tears against his cheek, and maybe, he thought distantly, they were his own.

“The memories we wish we could change...”

He turned to Bill, looking into those green eyes. _How many times had their attempts to reach out fell short? How many times had forces been driven between them, forces they still ceased to understand?_

“The secrets we feel like we have to keep,” he continued, looking over at Richie, who was watching the side of Eddie’s face with a kind of painful longing he couldn’t help but understand, “...are the hardest to walk away from.”

“The good stuff...the pictures in our mind that fade away the fastest. Those pieces of you feel the easiest to lose. Maybe I don’t want to forget. Maybe if that’s what today’s all about—“ he locked eyes with Bill, who smiled reassuringly, “forget it, right?”

He looked out into the crowd, jaw set, taking a deep breath, eyes steelier than they had ever been. He’d never known bravery until he was forced to confront it in the face, and now it was all about to come tumbling out— logic and order be damned.  He was going to say the words he’d never gotten to say, even if it trembled the ground beneath his feet and crumbled the fragile walls shielding him from that haunting unknown.

“I know I’m a Loser. And no matter what,” he looked at Richie, _“I always fucking will be.”_

Dropping the microphone, the last thing Stanley heard was the deafening screech of feedback, and his own startled cry as something emerged from the shadows, towering over him.  Like a man in prayer, Stanley keeled over onto his knees.

And then the world went black.

* * *

Eddie awoke with a gasp, a bone-deep coldness seeping through his veins— the heady drip of fear. The movement startled Richie, who was sitting propped up against the coffee table, looking rather flushed.

“Guys,” he breathed, rousing the attention of the other Losers, who had just begun to stir.

He looked up at Richie, face solemn and troubled as ever.

_ “I think Stan is alive.” _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys! Sorry for the late update, I've had NO free time lately with school and it absolutely sucks. I had a bit of trouble with this chapter, it's a new P.O.V. so it takes a bit to try to perfect it. I'm not sure if it sounds in character for Stan, so let me know! I really hope I did his character justice, I love him so much. Also I am not Jewish, so forgive me if the synagogue scene wasn't accurate. I found it interesting to explore because I watched a video that revealed that the words Stanley was fumbling over in It Chapter One was just the first words you need to recite before opening the Torah, giving some insight into how much Stanley truly struggles with his faith, ESPECIALLY after Pennywise.
> 
> Anyways, leave me a comment if you'd like, and if you want to talk to me about this chapyter, this fic, or reddie is general, come find me over at @pastel-reddie on tumblr! :D


	29. Chapter Twenty Nine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, it feels so good to update! I know I say this all the time, but shit is really starting to get real, so buckle your seatbelts, y'all. ;)
> 
> Enjoy <3
> 
> -
> 
> Also I draw too and I made a Reddie comic based off the song ‘Everybody Wants to Rule the World’ by Tears For Fears, so here’s the link if you wanna check it out: https://pastel-reddie.tumblr.com/post/189170511347/tumblr-fucked-the-quality-but-heres-my-humble

Richie’s heart was a cold throbbing lump in his throat, body sickly warm as the beginnings of a hot, nervous sheen of sweat aired across his forehead. 

His eyes were cast down at his white ceramic plate, and if he squinted enough, he thought he could see the harsh lines etching themselves into his face, the shadowy cast of the dark circles ringing his eyes like war wounds, and the grim horizon line of his smile.  His stomach growled loudly, a bone-deep hungry scraping past his ribs and clawing at his gut. Richie ignored it, looking past the donut on his plate as he forced himself to look up and face the grisly circumstances falling over his morning; its shadow stretching out like a lazy cat.  The Losers club was back, but not without the fragmented trauma that had so composed the most formative years of their childhood. Being seated around the table with the Losers, Richie came to realize that so too, with the undeniable love he had for them, came the startling realization of hatred.

It was convoluted and _twisted_ and so odd that maybe you couldn’t even call it hatred at all. But there was  something there— something that rolled Richie’s gut and fisted an iron glove around his lungs and made him want to vomit up his still-beating heart on the table for all to see.

The Losers club was  back, and with it, the memories of the past Richie had tried so hard to bury with Eddie when the final beam of the Neibolt house came crashing down, collapsing into the earth. Buried— obscured and indistinguishable under that mounting rubble, left to rot and die right alongside the withering heart of Derry— the dank armpit of the world. But no, here it was in broad daylight, as blaringly obvious as a lark’s call; shrill and sharp across the summer sky. Like a fucking tapestry hung across the wall, stitched from the achingly constrictive strings connecting the Losers to Derry, each thread indifferent to the bloodshed, to the nightmares.

_ Some fucking highschool reunion _ , Richie thought sourly, biting into his donut like he was eating the entire goddamn world.

“Ed,” Beverly said softly, eyebrows knitting together. She was nursing a cup of coffee, and her hands, Richie noticed, were trembling around the blue ceramic base. “Can you tell us what exactly you saw?”

“No.” Richie looked up, raising his brows. Eddie was quick to elaborate, “I mean, I  _can_. I will. I just...I don’t know how to explain it. It’s all so...fuzzy.”

“W-W-Well anything you can tuh-tell us will help,” Bill said softly.

“It’s okay, honey, take your time,” Beverly soothed. And then she was laying her hand atop his own, a searing coil of envy pitting in Richie’s stomach.

“Y-Y-Yeah, t-t-take your time E-Eh-Eddie. We can wait.”

A chorus of agreement echoed out like a sonar, and Richie could practically feel the red glare of his anger beam hotly across his faze, breath sharp and saliva bitter as he swallowed thickly.

“We love you, Eddie,” Ben said softly, “all of us.”

It was so easy, all of it. Mike, so headstrong and sure. Mike who stayed behind for twenty seven years because he made an oath. Because, above all else, he loved six people, even if they couldn’t remember his face, or his voice, or the way all those years ago, how they had loved him too. 

Beverly, who had been deprived of any semblance of true, genuine, selfless love her entire life, and yet, had so much to give.  Beverly who would bum you a smoke in the same breath she would chastise you for it. Because she cared, and she would let you squeeze her hand until it went purple, let you bury your face in her blouse until your tears left a tacky trail across her shoulders, and emerge from it all loving you all the same. 

Ben— so sweet and genuine. Ben, who used the same kindness that used to get him beat up to heal others. Ben, who was alone for all his life, and who swore to never let anyone feel that way themselves, never again, not if he had any say in it. Ben, who was not only a master of romance— but all kinds of love. Who unashamedly voiced his feelings so clearly, so honestly. 

Bill, their leader. Still the same Big Bill they’d follow through hellfire, even after all those years. The same Bill Richie remembered, a proud, easy grin plastered across his face as he raced to beat the Devil, summer sun a warm halo around him as he cast his eyes towards the sky. Bill, who _always_ knew what to do.

And then there was Richie. And Eddie— perfect, amazing Eddie. And the underlying promise of _RichieAndEddie._ And there he was, staring at his ceramic plate as the man he loved trembled two feet away. And he was  _mad._

Because how could he compare to that? 

He would never have the right words at the right time, or the courage to touch Eddie, never mind the privilege of loving him. What was failure to provide something meaningful but another ripe opportunity to be inevitably, forgotten?

“Okay,” Eddie said finally, with the reluctant, but firm resolve of a man staring down the loaded barrel of a gun. 

He scratched a hand over his chin, a slight scratching sound emanating from where his blunt fingernails itched the skin. There was a slight five-o-clock shadow developing across his cheeks, and Richie regarded it with a kind of tentative interest. 

_ I guess he can grow facial hair after all. _

“Stan...he was in a bath.”

A sickly warm wave of nausea crashed over Richie. Suddenly, he wasn’t so hungry anymore. He regarded his forgotten donut with a look of disinterest, and with a bitter swallow, he pushed his plate away with the bone of his knuckles.

“T-Th-The,” Bill choked out, stuttering more now than ever. Richie trained a curious eye on him. He hadn’t heard him stutter this much since they were kids, right after Georgie died, tripping clumsily over his words, near-unintelligible altogether in between blubbering sobs.

_“The_ bath,” Eddie said gravely, looking like he tasted something foul.

The room was filled with a thick silence for a minute, the kind that wrapped its clammy palm tightly around your throat and seeped in through your pores, weighing down your body like liquid cement.

_ “ Jesus Christ _ _,”_ Mike breathed, scratching his head and leaning heavily into his palm.

Bill scrubbed a hand over his face, cupping them over the bridge of his nose, sharp worry-lines digging into his forehead. Richie followed his blank stare to the window across the room, where a small bluebird peered curiously at them, cocking its head almost playfully.

_What the fuck are you looking at? _ Richie thought sourly, and _God,_ he must really be going crazy, because he could have sworn he saw some semblance of stark annoyance flit across those tiny black eyes. The kind you’d expect to be regarded with after making someone the butt of an unfunny joke, or the way you would look at someone who was talking jovially out of their ass.

Richie would know; he had been on the receiving end of both of them for the majority of his life.

He tried not to let his mind wander to the persistent coos a certain Jewish joy had called shrilly up to the trees almost thirty summers past. 

_ “You’re crazy, Stanley. It’s not going to fucking work,” Richie had muttered that hot August afternoon, shouldering the curly-haired boy’s khaki book bag as he brought his hands to his mouth and let out another determined whistle. _

_ “It will too,” he had insisted, squinting disapprovingly at Richie, harsher words brimming on his tongue but making a swift grave in the back of his throat as that familiar, characteristic timidness clutched him like a monkey clambering at his back. _

_ “No offence, Stan, but if I was a bird and I heard that, I would fly the other way.” _

_ Stan just looked over at Richie, mouth pressed into a thin, almost prim line. He shrugged, perfectly manicured fingers smoothing down his blue dress shirt, ironed to a creaseless state. _

_ “And if I was a bird, I would shit on your head.” _

Richie had howled that day, louder and more obnoxiously than he ever had. Shock value was funny, it always was. Nobody needed to tell him that, it presented itself clear as day across Eddie’s face every time he made a joke about Mrs. K. But there was something about Stanley Uris’s break from that prissy resolve of his that had Richie keeling over, slapping his scraped and bruised knees, where Eddie had meticulously plastered Band-Aids across the purple skin a few days before.  They had gotten gross at that point— soggy and limp from shower steam and the general assault of whatever disgusting substances Richie managed to get covered in on a daily basis. A thin ring of dirt nibbled at the edges, where a tacky layer of glue resided, and underneath it, a fast-growing tan-line. Eddie would be appalled. He could practically hear the lectures surely going to be donned upon him, and it did nothing if not fuel his bubbling glee, grinning as he jostled Stan.

_ “Yowch! Stan the Man gets off a good one!” he crowed, cheeks flushed with that special kind of euphoria for the mundane that only comes with childhood. And then, because he was feeling particularly jovial, he slipped into a British Governor’s Voice, twiddling an imaginary mustache that failed to grow over the thin layer of peach fuzz barely grazing his upper lip. _

_ “Good one, ol’ chap! Yah gots potential, mate!” _

Stan had just rolled his eyes, straightening the cuffs of his shirt and bringing his hands back up to his face. _“I hope if the birds come, they poop on you,” he said calmly, almost dreamily._

_ “Awe, Staniel. And here I was thinking you didn’t love me.” _

He remembered getting pinned with that look— mildly annoyed, but falling short a few inches. Like he couldn’t be bothered to fully commit to it. In that warm summer day, Stanley had cupped his hands around his mouth once again, and as the sun filtered over the Barrens, a soft cooing sound began to echo.

Looking back on it, it really had been the perfect—

_ —Day.” _

“Huh?” Richie said intelligently, Eddie frowning at him from across the table.

He sighed, “I  said , I wonder how long he’s been down there,” he fiddled with his hands, “I know what it’s like...down in that place.”

He looked off into the distance, as if he felt exposed under Richie’s imploring gaze, “It’s like...the weeks go by like days.”

_“What else did you see?”_ Beverly almost whispered, her tea having gone cold in the mug, but holding itin a white-knuckle grip regardless.

Richie noticed she had extracted her hand from Eddie’s, which had now begun to shake on the table, fingers trembling. The urge to reach out was deafening. 

Richie tightened his grip around his coffee mug and brought the bitter taste to his mouth.

“There...his dad was there,” Eddie offered, eyebrows drawn in confusion, “they were at the...the Jewish church.”

“T-T-The synagogue,” Bill finished, gaze unmoving on Eddie’s face.

“Yeah,” he almost whispered, “there was a service too.”

“His B-B-Bat Mitzvah,” Bill blurted out, eyes wide.

“Yeah.”

For a minute, nobody said anything, just staring blankly down at their plates, and it felt all too reminiscent of their reconvening at the Jade of the Orient. Richie followed Bill’s eyes, and realized he was staring at an empty seat at the side of the table.

_ Stan. _

Richie looked between Eddie and the rest of the Losers, all exchanging secretive glances, faces equally as grim. He was waiting for the punchline, for the other shoe to drop. But this was no joke, and the only laughter it could spark was the sobbing kind, so manic you couldn’t help but tilt your head to the sky and let an unnatural howl tear from your chest.

_ No _ _,_ was all he could think, followed closely by the insistent mantra of, _not again._

“Look, I don’t know what...what you think you saw," he managed, rather ungracefully, the Losers turning to look at him as he stumbled over his words. He flushed red, "but it’s just a dream, okay! Just because Eddie’s having some weird nightmares doesn’t mean anything, right?”

His tone was frantic, pleading. He knew it. He could hear it in the crack of his voice, the way it waned on the last syllable like a caving roof reaching towards the soft earth.

A prayer, a_ plead._ One last chance to keep this— this wonderful warm purgatory where Eddie was alive, and as repressed as Richie was, that was_ enough_. Because Eddie was alive. He was _here_ and drinking from Richie's cup and sitting in his house in_ his_ pyjamas, and goddammit, he was  _alive_, and that was _all that mattered._

_ Please _ _,_ Richie thought,  _ please._

And then Beverly broke the silence:

“I saw something too.”

“M-Muh-Me too,” Bill said softly.

“I...saw something,” Ben offered, looking somewhat mortified as he cast his eyes to a dusty corner of the room.

“Mike, can you tell them—“ Richie turned to look at him, face falling flat as he saw the tentative raise of Mike’s big, strong hand, worn to callouses from years of farm work.

“I saw it too.”

Richie rubbed the bridge of his nose, making no move to catch the glasses slipping into his lap.

“Jesus Christ.”

* * *

“After we came back from dinner...I went up to my suite. I started running a bath, I—“ Bill sighed, rubbing his eyes, “I wanted to relax, you know?”

When nobody responded, he continued.

“My w-w-wrists...they were still bandaged up, from the b-b-broken window. They wouldn’t s-s-stop bleeding. So, I got in the bath, and I f-f-felt this...vision, almost. Not quite a m-muh-memory, but close enough, I g-g-guess. It was S-S-Stan...” he took in a shaky breath, “I saw him die.”

Beverly gasped, Ben pulling her in closer against his broad chest, looking at Bill with sympathetic eyes while Mike patted his back in some attempt to placate the bumbling hysteria spilling over in ragged breaths.

“And then...w-w-when I looked d-d-down, the water was red.  _B-B-Blood_ red.”

For a moment, there was silence. Too much of it— the kind that makes your ears ring, just to compensate for the lack of sound, that low hum you only notice when at your wit’s end, like the charred and disappearing butt of a cigaretteas the flame rips through the foil. 

And then Beverly said, “I saw blood too.”

When Richie looked up at her blearily, glasses a slight weight in his palm, her lower lip was wobbling, her hand trembling under Ben’s, engagement ring winking in the light.

“It was like when I was a  kid ,” she breathed, a sob catching on the back of her throat, “I—I had a shower, around the same time as you, Bill. There was so much _ blood__,”_ she whispered, trembling.

“I was there too,” Ben said, squeezing her hand, “it happened.”

“You actually  saw the blood?” Richie asked, watching his eyes flick nervously.

“Well...no. But I think it’s like when we were kids. How the adults couldn’t see the blood on Beverly’s walls. But we...we could.”

“Well, Haystack, we’re all adults, if you haven’t noticed, so how would  that work?” Richie shot back, throwing his hands up before scrubbing at his eyes again, pushing his glasses back on his face. 

He was being cruel, he knew it, but he couldn’t bring himself to care in that moment, let alone stop.

“I’m not saying it’s the exact same thing, Richie. All I’m saying is it’s similar. Maybe it’s targeting our own traumas, and that’s why no one else can see them.”

“This is bullshit. This is  bullshit !” Richie concluded, standing up, moving to push his seat back. But Ben caught his hand, cementing him in place.

“No. This is how It got us the first time— by turning us against each other! We need to stick together."

Richie trembled in his grip, jaw exploding with tension as he grit down on his teeth, the metallic taste of blood flooding his mouth.

Ben looked at him softly, “We’re all going through the same thing.”

And that was all it took before Richie was yanking his wrist out of Ben’s grip, slamming his fist down on the table, the sound echoing throughout the room.

“No!” he yelled, shaking. “It’s not the same thing!”

“R-R-Richie—“ 

_ “ Don’t _ _,”_ he threatened, finger trembling where it pointer accusatorially at him.

But Bill didn’t back down, instead, rising up to him like they had all those years ago, right after Neibolt.

_ “You couldn’t save him, but you can still save yourself.” _

_ “N-N-No, t-t-take it back!” _

Richie looked into his wide eyes, the dark circles under them, the desperate look on his face. The same kind he recognized in himself in the mirror, after Eddie’s death, before he had collided it with his fist, shattering the glass with a deafening crash.

_ “You’re scared, and we all are. But take it back!” _

Richie looked over at the Losers, practically cowering into themselves. He looked at Eddie, the still-healing wound gashed into his face. The thick bandages he knew were wrapped tightly around his torso, where his own blood and entrails had been threatening to spill out of just a month before.

_ “Eddie was nearly killed!” _

_ No. Never again. _

“You’re not the only one who’s lost people, Rich,” Bill said, voice as fine as glass, as low as a bleak foghorn over a midnight horizon, black waves lapping at the gravelly shore.

“No,” Richie said softly, eyes stinging. He hungered to swipe the brimming tears away with the back of his hand, but he could seem to move it from his side, where it hung down like a lead balloon.  “No, Bill. I’m not the only one who’s lost people,” he looked over at Eddie, who was unreadable under his gaze, and then looked back at Bill with a scowl, “but I’m the one who won’t let it happen again.”

“L-Luh-Listen to yourself!” Bill cried, jaw tightening as anger exploded out of him like a rogue firecracker, sparking fury burning into Richie’s skin as he shoved him once, roughly. “Do you want S-S-Stan to die down there alone,  _again?”_

“No! But this is just like the first time when Beverly went missing and you made me go back into Neibolt! And then when Mike called us all back and you made us go there again! Stop...looping me into your shit,” he clenched his fists, “I’m done, okay?! No more, Bill!”

“Richie—“ Beverly started.

He rounded on her, and there must have been something fiery blazing behind his eyes, because she stumbled back a little in surprise.

“No, Bev. Look, I don’t know what you guys think you saw, but all of this makes perfect sense. We were trapped in some diseased sewers for over a day with no sleep, fought some fucking  _killer clown_ ...post-traumatic stress, that’s all it  is .”

He turned to Bill, “You,” he pointed, “your wrists were bleeding when you got into the bath. Those cuts were deep, do you even know how much blood you lost? Enough to start seeing shit.”

“So you’re saying  we’re _making it up?_” Beverly said hotly.

“No! I’m saying we’re fucking traumatized, okay?! I can barely take a piss without thinking of those fucking sewers!” he shook his head, neck aching from the tightly drawn tension in his shoulders. He looked at Eddie, “And you, you almost died! You really wanna be traipsing around in that place again? You just got out!”

“No, Rich, I don’t!” he yelled, “But Stanley’s our friend, and Losers stick together.”

“Eddie, you have a hole in your face and another one through your chest. You’re not in any condition to be doing that.”

“And what’s that, huh, Rich? What’s my condition?” Eddie’s gaze was steely, threatened. 

“Weak, Eddie!” he yelled, voice faltering, and God, he hated how much it sounded like a sob, “You’re weak!”

Richie regretted his words at the best of times, but never this quickly. The sinking feeling registered before the last syllable even left his mouth, and as he stared in horror at Eddie’s face, he could see years worth of trauma flit over his eyes.

_ “ Eddie-bear, you can’t go outside, you’ll get hurt.” _

_ “Eddie-bear, you can’t run with your friends. You have asthma remember?” _

_ “Eddie-bear, don’t go, you’re too fragile to be on your own!” _

Each memory punched an accusatory finger to his chest, each one punctuating, _ weak, weak, weak._

Eddie raised a shaky hand up near his face, and it trembled in the air for a second before dropping it.

“Fuck you,” he said, pushing his chair back and storming out of the house with a slam of the door.

“I—“ Richie said, turning around, where all the Losers were boring holes into the side of his face. _“Forget it,”_ he muttered, stalking off to his room.

As he lay nestled in his childhood bed, frowning into his pillow like a prepubescent boy stood up at the school dance, he heard the conversation continue in the kitchen.

“It’s okay, man,” Mike said.

There was a heavy breath, like someone trying to suck in some oxygen through the heaviness weighing on their chest. Then a garbled noise that almost sounded like a cut off sob. 

Richie raised his head from the pillow slightly, listening with piqued interest.

“I just...I can’t leave him again. I can’t—“

And then Bill was sobbing, blubbering incoherently, the sound slightly muffled as the Losers, Richie assumed, pulled him into a tight hug. 

There was something in the way Bill said it— full of fear, that trepidation, that  remorse Richie knew like the back of his hand, that caused it to dawn on him. That Bill spoke about Stan the same way he spoke about Eddie.

_ Oh _ _,_ Richie thought, and as the sobs continued down the hall, he couldn’t help but feel a twinge of guilt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bill and Richie really need to start their own 'I'm stupidly in love with my best friend and poorly repressing it' support group. Honestly, these guys (gays) are USELESS. 
> 
> Stenbrough fans, how you feeling? :o
> 
> What about you, Reddies? ;)
> 
> Feel free to let me know your thoughts down below, and if you want to join a tumblr groupchat with me and some other readers, let me know! I'll add you and we can talk about Reddie together :D 
> 
> Thank you for reading, and brace yourselves for the next chapter, because...well, you'll see. ;)


	30. Chapter Thirty

_ Eddie was running. Eddie was shoeless, Eddie was fuming, and Eddie was downright blatantly lost, but goddammit, he was  _ running .

His legs ached, joints creaking like an old clock radio whirring to life. A hot, searing pain was seated in his hamstrings, and following footfall on his tired soles screamed at his mind to slow down. Each breath was punched out of him, drawn raggedly out throwing burning lungs. A shrill, wheezy sound had begun to emit from the back of his throat— a high-pitched whistling noise Richie called his ‘tea-kettle’ sound, ( _ “Someone turn Eddie off, he’s reached the boil!”) _

Through a haze of exhaustion, Eddie felt some kind of sheer, unstoppable wonder. Eddie was in triumphant pain.

His face split into a beaming grin and he ran even faster.

The long grass slashed across his legs like a whip coming down on a disobedient child as he cut across the lawn, leaving fine red scratch marks along his shins that would surely burn like a cult brand later, but he couldn’t bring himself to care as he heard voices in the distance.  It was vague shouting somewhere up ahead— a familiar boisterous squawk, and in the blinding white euphoria that pooled behind his eyes, he nearly collided with Richie.

“Woah there, Eds,” he started, placing a steadying hand on either of Eddie’s shoulders. “Who’s after you? The Devil?”

“Nah,” Eddie huffed out, unable to contain the face-splitting grin tugging painfully at his cheeks. He let out a breath— equal parts exasperation at Richie as it was a desperate bid for air. Finally, he stated, “That’s Bill.”

Richie had laughed, quieter under the overlooming threat that fell over them like the dark tapestry of night encroaching on the blazing sun of day.

“Are you sure you’re alright?” he frowned, looking curiously at Eddie’s face, as if he’s grown a third eye between the ridge of his brows, relaxed and light, the usual frowning crease etched into it softened. 

He could feel himself flush under the imploring look, and his chest heaving under Richie’s soft touch— that gentle contact. 

“Yeah,” he breathed, laughing a little. It was wispy and light and more like a prayer, or the earnest confession of a dying man.

Richie just smiled down at him, hands seeming to hesitate to leave their grip on the sun-flushed skin of Eddie’s forearms, right below the hemline of his red polo shirt's sleeves. His fingers twitched against the warm thrum of his pulse, battering wildly in his chest, as if they were thinking of slipping down and grasping Eddie’s trembling hands in his own.  Richie’s blue eyes sparkled like sunlight refracting off the sea behind those thick-framed glasses, and all coherent thoughts in Eddie’s mind in that moment narrowed down to a single sentiment:

_ He really wanted to kiss Richie right now. _

“Penny for your thoughts?” Richie laughed, but it sounded wrong— nervous. Flat, unlike the bubbling confusion pooling and churning in the pit of Eddie’s stomach.

_ A tug at his hand. _

“Watcha thinkin of, Eds?”

_ You _ .

Eddie looked down at his feet, the normally pristine white toes of his sneakers winking up at him with fresh scuff-marks, the sight glorious, and even through the nauseating haze of confusion, he couldn’t help but to feel a swell of pride.

“You with me, Eds?” Richie said softly, “What’s on your mind?”

He looked up into those eyes, more honest and open than they’d ever been. The hand not grasping Eddie’s wrist clambered up to bump his glasses back up the bridge of his nose— a nervous tic.

_ You _ _,_ he wanted to say, _i_ _t’s always you,  Rich,_

Instead, he said, “Don’t call me Eds,” and extracted his hand from Richie’s own.

He heard footsteps approaching, and they turned to see Bill coming down the street, a pained-looking Stan and a contemplative Mike close in tow. Bill himself looked somber, like a man resigned as he stares down the barrel of a gun in an enemy’s hand, knowing it will be the bullet to paint his brains across the walls like a Rorschach inkblot.  Richie’s smile faltered, and then crumpled as he drew in close to himself, the group coming together as a unit as they stand at the foot of the curb.

“Richie,” Eddie said carefully, peering up at him, “I think I’m losing my mind.”

Richie peered down at him, face noncommital, and Eddie didn’t miss the almost disappointed haze that fogged over his eyes. 

“That makes two of us,” he sighed, looking at the house. “Lucky for you, where we’re going, I don’t think you’ll need it.”

Eddie shivered, and saw Richie hardly containing the urge to do the same, drumming a nervous beat on the side of his leg.

_ Richie _ _,_ he wanted to say, wanted to reach up and touch his face, to comfort him. It was so easy, like a knee-jerk reaction, or a forgotten language re-learned and now invading his mind like a Nazi solider, spilling out his mouth in all the wrong ways and bleeding through his touch, his gaze.

_ Richie. _

And then Bill looked over at them, and he was pulling away.

“Yeah,” Eddie gulped, eyes glued to the horizon, “yeah.”

They were stood in front of the Neibolt house, looking at the rotted wood, the teetering shingles, the drowned flower beds, the crumpled door.

“Hey, Eddie,” came the obligatory quip, flatter, as though forced out through a disheartened tongue, “that looks like your mom’s vagina.”

Eddie bit his lip, hands trembling where they were held in vise-like grip at his sides. He shook his head.

“Shut up, Richie.”

_ And then, like a secret password, the gaping black maw of the Neibolt house opened to them, drawing them in like a moth to a flame, and swallowing them whole. _

* * *

Eddie frowned at the broken rubble littering the dead lawn, grass as yellow as sand and as dry as straw, weathered to its grave over the years and pushed flat against the ground like the cheek of a bullying victim from the assault of careless squatter’s feet in trying times.

Vaguely, he could make out the crude remains of the old picketed trellis, and the jagged criss-crossed underbelly of the porch smashed to pieces and sticking out of the rotted earth like half-hearted stakes.  He remembered the diseased hand that had shot out of it all those years ago, the bursting green veins, the feverish waxy sheen of the skin, the bubbling red lesions filling like helium balloons. The horrendous, claw-like nails that hadn’t seen the inside of nail clippers in decades, looking almost torn out of the bloodied cuticles like capsized ships speared through a wasted shore.  Joints creaking like an old door, barely held on by rusted, unoiled hinges, knuckles ripping through the withering skin, bones locked and severe and seemingly stuck in a claw-like grip, reaching up towards Eddie to close around his throat—

_ “How bout a blowjob, Eddie?” _

The atrophying fingers clamping like a vise around his shoulder, the rot so close, its foul stench seeping through his nostrils as he gags drily through a choked-off inhale, salty with the start of startled tears.

The leper smiling at him, knowing, cruel.

_ “It won’t do you any good to run, Eddie.” _

A _hand squeezing around his arm, branding fingerprints into his skin, crushing the bone beneath it and sending hot rivulets of pain down the joint. That facing boring down at him, so close, so—_

“Ah!” Eddie yelled, jumping back like he’d been burned.

At his legs, a small child peered up at him, too young to be close to teenagehood, and yet too old to be a toddler. Somewhere in that sweet spot, in the awkward crosshairs of impending puberty, a growing foul tongue in the glorious works.

“I  _ said_ _,_ catch my ball, mister!” the voice spoke up at him indignantly.

Visions of the leper still played in the forefront of his mind, and he shivered, blinking them away, letting out an intelligent, “Huh?”

The kid sighed, the sound long and suffering, like a lawyer going through a divorce, or a man who decided he had already seen too much of the world. Eddie half expected to see a cigarette dangling from his lips.

“My  _baseball__?”_ he drawled, giving it a pointed toss in the air, catching it in a gloved hand, the leathered palm of it worn and soft with age.

A few feet away, a small gaggle of prepubescent boys stared at him owlishly, their small eyes unblinking over the dipped visor of their caps.

“Oh,” he said, “sorry.”

“Yeah,” the boy said, giving him a suspicious look and taking a hesitant step back. He skittered off towards the other kids again, but not before deftly swivelling his head back and saying, “that was lame, dude.”

Eddie frowned down at his reflection, rippling in the small puddle at the curb, run-off from a nearby rogue garden hose, draining into the sewers.

_ He watched his face distort in the water, and as his expression peered bleakly up at him, he brought his foot down— _

—and let the cool water of the Barrens wash over his shin. Distantly, rampant thoughts of cholera and staph infections urged at his mind, but he dismissed them like a busy father banishing their child from their study.

“So, Haystack,” Richie drawled, from the long grasses where he lay, a long piece of straw nestled in the crook of his mouth where he nursed a cigarette a mere fifteen minutes before. “This dam gonna work or what?”

Ben tottered clumsily over the bank, worn denim sweeping over his legs in boyband-like flares, nearly black with the water sloshing over them. They were the kind of jeans Eddie’s mom would refer to as ‘husky boy’ pants. Eddie thought they were kind of cool.

“Yeah, it’ll work,” he said resolutely, letting his chubby palms rest on the soft silhouette of his sweater, which Ben wore even through the summer. Eddie could see the a bead of hot, itchy sweat careening down his flushed face, and he flexed the ball of his own foot with mild interest. The new kid was interesting, alright.

“How do you even know how to make these things?” Richie asked, absentmindedly flipping his small red lighter open and closed, a small blue flame spluttering out from the metal tip.

Ben picked up a long stick, absentmindedly refining the crude blueprint he’d etched into the mud. He shrugged, “I have a lot of Erector sets.”

Richie just hummed, seemingly satisfied with the response, much to Ben’s obvious relief, who let out a suppressed sigh and let his shoulders slump relaxed. Eddie supposed he could understand that.  To an outsider, Richie’s unapologetic, insistent inquisitions about nearly everyone and everything could be jarring, imploring even. Richie was like a dog— loyal as anything, mighty good company, but sometimes he went barking up the wrong tree.

Eddie looked at him with a quiet kind of awe as he lazed in the sun, stretched out like a cat, a piece of straw dangling from his mouth where a cigarette had been moments earlier.

“Get a good look, Eds,” he drawled, not opening his eyes, “while I’m still young and beautiful.”

Eddie blushed for reasons he wouldn’t understand until nearly thirty years later, but Stan was significantly less inhibited in his response.

“You mean this is how you look when you’re beautiful?” he deadpanned, “Well, you’re gonna be one butt-ugly adult then, Richie.”

Like a bird shot from the sky or a rogue missile plummeting towards the ground in a nose-dive, Richie’s resolve fell. Slapping his knees, he let out an indignant-sounding squawk Eddie supposed was meant to be a laugh.

“Stan gets off a good one! Yowza, folks!”

“Y-Y-You know w-what they s-suh-say,” Bill giggled, looking at an exasperated Stan.

“What,” Stan said, eyes narrowed.

“T-T-The o-old ones are w-wuh-wiser.”

The Losers dissolved into fits of laughter, Stan rolling his eyes good-naturedly, long-since accustomed to being on the receiving end of many jokes comparing him to a senior citizen.  Eddie found himself, in that pale sunlight, looking at his friends with a sense of fondness, adoration. These are the people who cared about him. These were the people who got him.

_ These were the people who loved him. _

When the laughter settle d down into a comfortable silence, as it often was, Richie was the first one to break it.

“Say, Molly Ringwald. Got any more smokes?”

Beverly rolled her eyes, stretching idly in the afternoon sun. Ben’s eyes were glued to her face and Eddie noticed his gaze lingered for just a beat too long before turning his attention back to the dam, a bright blush colouring his cheeks.

“Sorry, I gave my last one to someone who doesn’t call me dumb nicknames,” she said cooly, no real bite behind her words.

Richie gasped, throwing a hand to his chest, “Eddie, I didn’t know you smoked!”

Eddie, who never ceased to fall victim to Richie’s many traps, screwed his face up in indignation, “I don’t!” he squeaked, earning a boisterous laugh from Richie.

“No, but seriously, do you actual have a cig?” Richie repeated, fanning himself like a fair maiden, “I think I’m going through withdrawal.  _Ah say I’m goin’ throughs withdRA-WAHL, Miss Scawatt!”_

Bill shook his head, “I s-suh-swear those t-t-things are just m-muh-making you more annoying.”

“Nah, Big Bill,” Richie said, pulling himself to his feet and slapping him on the back just on the verge of too hard, “that’s all natural.”

“How lucky for us,” Stan quipped, rewinding his watch with perfectly manicured fingers. He had lost it down in the Barrens last week and practically had a coronary. 

“I really am out of smokes,” Beverly said glumly, knocking the toes of her sneakers together and digging her heel into the ground, “‘ran out.”

“W-Wuh-Well we can a-always get s-suh-some,” Bill offered, and everyone turned to look at him.

At the best of times, the Losers would turn to Bill like sunflowers to the sun, and it’s common law that if someone offers to buy beer or smokes, you listen. So the effect doubled tenfold and Eddie was sure Bill could pronounce himself as God and the Losers would nod along.

Bill, however, just stuttered.

“I- I m-m-mean. The owner knows m-muh-me. I buy smokes for my dad sometimes, he won’t t-t-think any d-different.”

“What if he asks your dad about it?” Mike frowned, and Eddie could see Richie send him a warning look.

“I doubt my d-d-dad really c-cares anymore,” Bill said gloomily, and the Losers recognized exactly what he meant, and what went dutifully unsaid: 

_ I doubt he cares since Georgie died. _

The Losers just nodded, and as they rose to their feet, Richie slung an arm around Eddie, bringing him in in a loose headlock up against his chest.

“Aw, Rich!” he protested, squirming out of his grip.

Richie just laughed and slung his arm snugly around his shoulder.

“You’re gonna get lung cancer one day,” Eddie said sombrely, and he must have looked awfully concerned, because Richie just softened and leaned over to gently ruffle Eddie’s hair.

“Whaddya say, Eds? We can even get a rocket pop on the way there!”

Eddie frowned, conceding, “Okay, but you’re paying!”

Richie just laughed and laughed, head tilted towards the sky with an easy grin, “You drive a hard bargain, but fine.”

“Damn right,” he frowned, “and don’t call me Eds!”

Elbows knocking together, he looked up at the side of Richie’s face, who wiggled his eyebrows playfully until Eddie was blushing and looking away with a nervous laugh. The warmth flooding his chest was almost unbearable, and along with it, the violent onslaught of what could be pansily described as ‘butterflies.’

So, Eddie did the only thing he could think of. Pressing the flat of his palm to Richie’s arm, he looked back at him with a grin, “Tag, you’re it.”

Richie stilled, letting out a surprised bark, eyes glittering behind his thick-framed glasses. “Oh, you’re on, Spaghetti Man!”

“Don’t call me that!” Eddie protested, and then they were taking off down the fields, clouds racing above them, the sun still promisingly high in the sky. 

Eddie cast his face to the summer warmth and he laughed. He laughed and laughed, and as Richie’s laugh mingled with his own, he thought it might just be the best thing he’d ever heard. 

Still, even as he grinned, he couldn’t rid of the urging voice in his head:

_ It won’t do you any good to run, Eddie. _

* * *

Eddie saw the metallic object winking at him in the brambles, and before he could think about landmines or discarded druggie needles or how God-knows-how-many feet have walked over this exact spot, he was kneeling down to unearth it.

Richie’s lighter— faded and pilling with age, but Richie’s lighter alright. Haphazard streaks tainted the once-sleek metal, where it had been rained on particularly hard over the years. Rich paid a pretty penny for it back then, two  hundred pennies to be exact, nearly half his week’s allowance. He’d never forget the smug, self-satisfied look on Richie’s face that day as he came bopping down the Quarry, lighter slung around his neck on a chain like a shark tooth, a blinding grin on his face.

Eddie sighed,_ maybe some things were better left in the past._

With one last look over the horizon, a brief stand-off with the setting sun, Eddie tucked the lighter into his pocket, and began the trek back.

* * *

When he walked up the empty driveway of Richie’s house, Bill was already waiting on the porch, leaning over the guardrails sheltering a particularly pathetic garden bed, with a beer in hand.

“Hey,” Eddie said, walking up the steps.

“Hey,” Bill greeted back. 

They stayed like that in silence for a minute, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. It never had been for Eddie, not with Bill. No matter how silly Eddie was being, Bill seldom mentioned it unless he wanted him to. Bill understood, and Eddie thought, just maybe, he just  got it  because sometimes, Bill could be silly too.

“You gonna share?” he said finally, nodding at the half-drunk amber bottle in his hand, condensation dripping down the neck.

Bill laughed quietly, “Y-Y-You not afraid of juh-juh-germs anymore, E-Eddie?”

Eddie just took the bottle from him, taking a long swig and looking honestly over the horizon, “There are worse things than germs, Big Bill.”

“Yeah,” Bill said, looking at him a little curiously. He turned his gaze back across the street, following Eddie’s eyes, “yeah.”

“The others,” Bill said after a few minutes, looking at him again, “t-t-they all went b-b-back to the townhouses. As it t-t-turns out, nobody likes s-suh-sleeping on the ground.”

“Richie too?” Eddie asked, a little too quickly, and he berated himself internally.

_ You’re mad at him, Eddie. Remember? You better not let yourself forget, because if you do, you’ll leave room for worse feelings to come up. _

Eddie fumbled for his medicine, medicine that was no longer in his fannypack, which was no longer holstered to his waist.

_ Fuck . _

“Yeah, R-Ruh-Richie too,” Bill said simply, as if were common sense. He paused before adding, “I don’t really think he wants to be alone right now.

Eddie scoffed, taking another drink.

“No, I’m serious, Eddie,” Bill said, and from his stern gaze, Eddie could tell he was. “Richie’s been in Derry by himself for almost a month...cut him a little slack.”

“Bill, I don’t want to hear—wait,” Eddie blanched, mouth going dry, “Richie stayed in Derry?”

Bill sighed, taking the bottle from Eddie’s hand, which had gone limp by his side, and took a swig, face screwing up, as if debating whether to elaborate, and then taking another sip.

“M-Me, Bev, Ben, Mike...we all went home,” he bit his lip, “obviously, w-w-we were all t-t-torn up over what happened, but...some of us m-muh-more t-t-than others.”

Eddie’s resolve was weak— cowering like a kicked puppy and flattened by Bill’s words.  _Come on, Eddie, _ he chastised. But still, his chest bloomed with warmth.”

“If he cared so much, he wouldn’t be leaving Stan down there to die,” he said, a little unfairly.

Bill just sighed, the sound long and drawn out, and when Eddie turned to look at him, he was startled to see the weary dark circles ringing his eyes, the thin lines etched into his face. The immortal Big Bill— tossed around haphazardly in the winds of time. They all were, really, like tumbleweeds blowing through a ghost town— lost, small, and driven by forces they couldn’t even begin to understand.

“Richie was being an asshole, Eddie. Believe me, I know,” he scrubbed a hand over his chin, the slight scratch of stubble echoing into the night, “but it hasn’t been easy on him,” he looked at Eddie, “he lost two of his best friends in under a week, of course he’s messed up about it.”

_No, no, Eddie, _ he whispered to himself,  _no!_

“Are you excusing what he did?” he yelled, that relentless noise inside of him exploding like a time bomb. His hands were trembling, the beer resting on the edge of the railing toppling over with a deafening crash. All of Eddie’s remaining resolve shattering into a million pieces. He was shaking like an epileptic.

“No, Eddie, I’m not! But I’m saying he had his reasons!” Bill shouted back, and he found himself cowering under him like he did in Neibolt.

“Then why didn’t he say anything to Bev, huh? Or Ben?” Eddie said hysterically, “Because I’m weak? Because I’m _fragile and stupid and need to be protected—“_

“He’s acting like that because he _cares!”_ Bill yelled.

And just like that, like summer’s longest day fading into the pale twilight of winter, like porcelain shattering irreparably on the ground, Eddie’s resolve crumbled. Crumbled, like sand between his fingers, like dead leaves beneath his feet. 

Eddie’s heart stopped in his chest, and for a moment, he was a dead man.

_ The leper _ _,_ Eddie thought frantically,  _ it got me._

_ It won’t do you any good to run, Eddie. _

And then, like the beat after a soundless scream, like a faulty radiator finally kicking in, like nerves sparking alive at the first touch of ice, it started beating again, tripping over each beat like a madman, like his own heart was trying to outrun his past, outrun the desires lying within it.  Eddie wanted to scream, wanted to cry for his mother, or Myra. Wanted to take his medication, placebos be damned, and he wanted to leave Derry and never return.

Instead, he stare unmoving at the ground.

Bill sighed, clamping a hand down on his shoulder, “C-C-Come on,” he said, pulling Eddie against his side and leading them down the steps, “let’s go m-muh-meet the others.”

Eddie said nothing the entire drive, but as he lay his head on the window, he couldn’t shake Bill’s words from his mind.

_ He’s acting like that because he cares. _

* * *

Eddie was standing in front of Richie’s door. Eddie was standing in front of Richie’s door, and he hardly heart the three curt knocks he bashed into the mahogany or the following reluctant footsteps, because his heart was trying to claw its way out of his throat, and it took all his willpower not to vomit it up at his own feet.

Eddie was standing on shaky legs, like a young doe who hadn’t quite learned to walk yet, and he was trembling all over. He was trembling and surely he would soon drop dead on the dirty hotel room floors and that would be it. It would make a headline, maybe two, oh, who was he kidding, he’d be lucky to get a page in the obituaries at the back of an old newspaper, christened by the coffee stain of someone living and breathing and entirely not him.

Eddie was panicking and Eddie was getting ready to leave, and then Richie was in front of him.

_ The brunet boy in the doorway is glaring at you because he is trying to kill you, and you deserve this, you do, and you know this, and you are ready to die in this hallway because you wanted to touch his hands and lips and this means your life is over anyway. _

“Can I help you?” Richie scoffed, looking down at him. His eyes were red-rimmed. Distantly, through that fog, Eddie wondered if he’d been crying.

His hair was damp and hanging in loose curls over his forehead. His white shirt clung to his skin, droplets of water careening down his strong arms. He was angry— so _angry._ He was hurt. 

Eddie felt his heart pulse in his throat.

_Mommy, you were right, you were right and you knew it, I’m sick and no medication can cure me, Mommy, and that’s the worst part of it all. No amount of camphor or aspirin can fix this, no placebo can stop the fever in my body or the pounding of my heart when I look at him._

Richie raised an eyebrow, ducking his head down to look at his face, “Eddie?”

_ It won’t do you any good to run, Eddie. _

Richie’s face softened, “Eddie?”

Bill’s words rung in his ears : 

_ He acts like that because he cares. _

Staring up at him with wide eyes, Eddie surged forward and kissed him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> is it even a reddie fanfic if there isn't richard siken in it? that little bit at the end with richie in the doorway (unfortunately) wasn't me waxing poetry, it's a rendition of an excerpt from 'crush,' by richard siken (amazing poetry by the way). also the reason b-b-bill didn't stutter at the end was because he was giving a speech of sorts, like how he was able to do that at neibolt.
> 
> also!!! after 30 chapters they FINALLY kiss. i swear i didn't intend for it to take that long, but here we are, over 70,000 words in, jesus christ. it's all gonna be fast moving from here on out because shit. is. going. DOWNNN.
> 
> if you wanna scream at me you can do so in the comments below or on tumblr @pastel-reddie ;)


	31. Chapter Thirty One

Richie woke up to an empty bed and a pounding headache.

_Blessed be the words you first utter when you wake in the morning, for they are the honey that will drip from your lips, and the nectar that will sweeten your day,_ Richie remembered reading somewhere.

“Urgh,” he said intelligently, followed by a particularly poignant, “fuck.”

Yes, the world was moved by Richie’s declarations that morning, but nothing was more transformative than the pale stucco ceiling of the hotel room, swimming in his glazed eyes in perfect synchronity with his churning stomach, which gave a pointed lurch as he leaned over the bed.

“Gah,” Richie gagged drily, the tickly feeling crawling up his throat subsiding as his lips wet with a rogue trail of drool. “Ungh.”

He rolled up to a sitting position, shivering as the cool air hit his bare chest, which was littered with an impressive spattering of purplish-red bruises that trailed a line from his collarbone to the hem of his boxers.  He groaned into his hands, knuckles kneading his browbone, sighing at the temporary respite it brought. He lumbered up, plucking his now-rumpled white shirt off the pilly carpet, where it had been splayed across like roadkill.  He winced as his knees gave an alarmingly loud ‘pop.’

“Jesus Christ, I’m way too fucking old for this shit,” he muttered.

_Too old for what? _ his mind prodded,  _too old to be picking your own clothes off a filthy hotel room carpet? Too old to be waking up hungover like some college student?_

_What is it, Richie? _ it asked him, so saccharine sweet, like the dew-drop glistening web of a spider, _ what’s eating you alive?_

As he languidly made his way towards the small en-suite, the ramblings continued.

_The sun is shining, all your friends are downstairs..._Eddie_ is downstairs, _ it cooed,  _everything just the way you wanted it, isn’t that right, Richie?”_

He stared at the mirror, arms planted on either side of the slick marble counter. He looked troubled— the cataclysmic path his mind was trailing illustrated in the thin lines etched across his skin, just under his eyes.  _But it isn’t what you wanted, was it? Because Eddie  kissed you. He kissed you with nothing to preface it, no declaration of love, no emotion but stone cold fear and the bubblings of hysteria. He dragged his lips across your neck in a searing path, eyes screwed shut, as if he couldn’t bear to look at you. _ _ Why wouldn't he look at you?  _ _And when you woke up in the morning, his side of the mattress was cold, like it echoed the phantom touch that you feel all overyour own skin now. You wake up in a dirty hotel room all alone and you and collect your things like some kind of cheap whore and that should be enough, it really should, but it wasn’t and it isn’t because no matter how much you try to hide it no matter how much you try to change it, it always meant more than that to you, didn’t it, Richie,  didn’t it, Richie—_

Richie threw himself under the cold assault of the shower stream, nerves sparking alive as he gave a ragged gasp, leaning against the tiled walls, head bracketing between his arms as his hair plastered across his forehead.

_i leave tomorrow morning,_ he decided, one more day and I'm out of here...for good.

* * *

Richie walked downstairs fifteen minutes later feeling physically, a little more like a person.

His hair had dried soft and was beginning to curl around his ears, his jaw was smooth and nearly free of stubble. He had a new shirt clinging to his skin, still wet from the shower. But his mind was still furled in on itself inside, sulking like a petulant child.  Richie rubbed his throbbing temples and flopped down at the table, groaning muffledly into his arms.  Distantly, he could hear the whirr of a kettle— high pitched and shrill, and it worked like a dog-whistle, pawing at his ears and sending a deadly glance at whoever had set it off.

“Can you  _please_ keep it down?” he bitched at them— the offender in question, just so happening to be Bev.

“Jesus, Rich. Who pissed in your coffee this morning?” 

He just gave a half-hearted grunt, scrubbing his hands over his face.

“Nobody, yet,” she answered, placing a filled mug in front of him. When he rose to the smell of espresso, Beverly was looking down at him pointedly, “but keep it up and I can change that.”

“Ah yes, Ms. Marsh. I would be honoured to drink from the golden stream that is your pis—“

Bill grimaced as he walked in, shaking his head, “I d-d-don’t even w-wuh-wanna know.”

Beverly just rolled her eyes, taking a seat next to him, “How do you manage to be so disgusting so early in the morning?”

He took a sip of his coffee, nearly moaning into the cup. He let his shoulders slump as he felt the caffeine work its magic, sharp daggers of the hangover ebbing away like a low tide. He smiled over the rim of his mug.

“It’s a gift.”

* * *

If being terrorized by an oddly prejudiced killer clown, repressing his feelings and the better half of his memories for twenty seven years, only to return and get stabbed by the  same aforementioned killer clown the second he returned to his hometown— wasn’t enough to convince Eddie that maybe, if there was such a thing as a God, that it wasn’t smiling down at him, then stepping foot into the kitchen that morning was the proverbial straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back.

There, sitting in  his seat, was Richard-Fucking-Tozier, curls matted across his forehead and shirt clinging to his chest like a second skin.

“What the fuck are you doing in my seat?” he asked, recognizing how juvenile he sounded.

So what if Eddie reverted to the equivalent of a prissy eight year old every time he was faced with some distasteful emotion? That was nobody’s business, and at that, Eddie primly decided as he marched over to the table, it wasn’t his own either.

“I didn’t know there was assigned seating,” Richie challenged, leaning back in his chair, arms crossed over his chest. He looked at Eddie pointedly behind his dark glasses, “I don’t see a sign.”

Eddie grit his teeth, “Why would there need to be a sign if there was a verbal agreement?”

“I didn’t hear any verbal agreement. I never heard,_ ‘hey, Richie! This is my seat, you can never sit here, in this specific spot, ever, or I’m going to bitch about it.'_”

Eddie was fuming, and said with some kind of scary mix of anger and sugar-coated enthusiasm, “Hey, Richie! This is my seat, you can never sit here, in this specific spot, ever, or I’m going to bitch about it.”

“Well, that’s a shame, Eds. You see, there’s this other verbal agreement, you might’ve heard it. ‘First come, first serve’? But hey, there’s an open seat right on Ben’s lap.”

Eddie just scowled at him— what else could he do? Richie was being an asshole, and Eddie totally deserved it, he knew that. But the funny thing is, so often in life, we are the cruellest to others when we are the most unforgiving of ourselves.

Biting his tongue, Eddie huffed and sat down in the chair next to Bill.

“You’re seriously passing up an opportunity to sit on that lap?” Richie asked, “Scooch over, Benjamin, I’m coming in.”

Ben just rolled his eyes, but humoured him with a laugh.

_No, don’t encourage him! _ Eddie wanted to scream.

“Do you ever stop being an idiot for one single second?” he said instead.

Vague hurt seemed to flit over Richie’s eyes for a split second, but he just replied cooly, “No. Maybe I should’a stole some of the tranquilizer from Mrs. K when she had rabies.”

Unbelievable .  _ Unbelievable _ . Well, no, completely believable. But sometimes ‘unbelievable’ meant _‘I’d really rather not believe it.’_ Either way, _unbelievable_—still, even after it all, Richie was cracking jokes.

“My mom didn’t have fucking rabies—“

“Well—“

“You know, you’d think after all these years, you’d come up with some cleverer jokes.”

“And you’d think you would grow taller than four feet since we were twelve, but life is full or surprises, isn’t it, Eds?”

“I’m five-foot-fucking-nine, asshole. That’s the average male height in most parts of the world—“ 

Eddie should stop talking, he knew it. Richie’s eyes were cold and betrayed— this clearly wasn’t their usual playful banter. But it was too late, his mouth was like a wild stallion, fleeing the barriers and charging recklessly ahead, paying no mind to the wreckage it left in its wake.

Eddie’s face, along with his vision, went red.

“And don’t call me Eds!” he shouted, rounding on Richie. 

It was different this time, not the usual half-hearted shake of his head and poorly-hid smile of amusement tugging at his lips. No, it was scared, angry. Like a declaration of sorts.

For a minute, there was silence; just Richie’s wide eyes eyes boring into his own and the quiet clink of silverware as someone stirred their coffee.

“You guys are arguing like kids again,” Mike said, trying for a smile. But it was strained, and as he looked between the two of them, Richie knew he understood something between them— whatever is was, had changed.

“Yeah,” Beverly laughed, still sounding a little sleep-drunk. Or— the smell of liqueur on her breath suggested, regular drunk. The next words came with a solemn sort of recognition, like she was speaking from experience. “Or like you slept with each other and  really regretted it.”

And everyone— Mike, Ben, Bev...they all laughed. Because it was funny, wasn’t it, the idea that Richie and Eddie would be queers? Because, even after killer clowns from outer space and drainpipes that regularly belched out blood, there were still things that transcended absurdity. And the idea that Eddie would feel something towards Richie, well, that was the greatest joke yet.

_ Having any good chucks, Eds? _

_ Oh, so many, Rich. So many goddamn chucks. Shotgunning with my best friend and pretending like it was the smoke that ached my lungs that night and made me gasp into my inhaler, not the haze in your eyes and the way our lips almost touched. And then leaving, LEAVING, Rich, how you left even though you promised you wouldn’t, and sure, college would have come soon enough, encroaching on that pale summer sunlight like the dark, dismal breath of fall. But you didn’t have to LEAVE.  _ _ But you did, and when you looked at me like that, with those blue eyes and you told me you remembered me and we said we would, that we would keep in touch but we knew, we KNEW— _ _ And I, I ran. I ran like hell the second my mom died— she died right by the door, isn’t that funny, Rich? She was so big they had to break down the goddamn front door to get her body. Isn’t that funny? Isn’t it? She died and I had a chance to run, to leave her, those placebos, and that goddamn clown behind for good. And I ran, I ran alright, ran all the way to New York and right into Myra’s arms. _

_ I married my mother! Ha! Isn’t that a kicker? But you know what the worst part is? I think, I really do think, Rich, that no matter how fast you run, no matter how much distance you put between yourself and your past, it will always come around to find you. Because something in us changed that day we went into the Neibolt house, something changed and you know it— we all know it.  _ _ Stan maybe knew it best of all, and that’s why he did what he did, because something cold and dark and twisted built a nest for itself in our hearts that day, Richie, and the thing about this world, the crazy thing is that at the end of the day, everything comes on right back home. _

_ And how can you live with that? Knowing that you can run as far as you can and you can play house as much as you want, but in the end, in that bitter end of it all, your demons will be right there, waiting.  _ _ Look at me, Rich! I’m living on a livewire and teetering on the brink. You were wrong, I’m not brave at all, and you know what’s worse?  _ _ I did all this always hoping you would come and save me. Isn’t that pathetic? I came back to Derry and I did nothing and then I died, Rich! I DIED! When I woke up in those sewers, all I could think about was you. And now you’re here and I’m scared and no less the coward I was twenty seven years ago, isn’t that funny, Richie? Some DAMN GOOD CHUCKS. _

He looked at Richie. Richie looked at him. Bev’s eyes pingponged between the two of them and the prying eyes of everyone else followed suit.

_Stop looking at me like that! _ Eddie wanted to yell.

Bev’s mouth dropped, and Eddie could see, Eddie could see through a white hot burn of shame that she  knew.

Bill walked through the door, completely oblivious of the thick cold tension that had settled over the room, he held up a takeout bag and smiled.

“Who w-w-wants breakfast?”

* * *

Look- Richie did  not sleep with Eddie.

And as he kicked a stray rock, sending in skittering into the Kenduskeag below, he couldn’t decide if that was better or worse. Of course, fucking in a clumsy, frantic, rageful fury wasn’t what Richie had in mind when he’d dreamt of having Eddie to himself, but then again, he’d never imagined their first kiss would feel more like a punch either.  He pressed his knuckles against his mouth absentmindedly. They were sore, kiss-bitten, and sure enough, ta tender purple bruise ached just under the surface.

_ Fucking Eddie _ _,_ he thought sourly.

He looked about three feet ahead, where Eddie was bitching to Bill about the canal water soaking through the bottom of his jeans. His face was mostly obscured by the angle, but Richie could faintly make out the distinctive line etched between his eyebrows and the look of utter contempt on his lips.

His lower stomach twinged slightly, like the bassy hum of a tuning fork.  _Fucking. Eddie, _ his traitorous mind thought. 

And like all unwanted thoughts, it took free rein of Richie’s head like an untamed stallion. Thoughts of the way Eddie had pounced on him the night before flooded his mind, stiflingly close and searing hot in their familiarity.  Richie had been drinking He’d driven with the other Losers to the townhouses and barely idled downstairs with the others before retiring to his room with a bottle of whisky and half a life’s worth of stale shame in hand. It was about ten-thirty when the knock came, when Richie reluctantly opened the door.

And then Eddie was there, he discerned through an increasingly fuzzy memory. Eddie was there, and he, he—

_ He grabbed ahold of Richie’s shirt collar and yanked him down into a bruising kiss. Richie gasped against his mouth, mumbling out something like, “Woah, Eds!” or an eloquent, “What the fuck?” but it was swallowed by Eddie’s mouth as he bit down harshly on Richie’s lower lip and startled, Richie let him inside. _

The door slamming shut behind him. Eddie kissing him back, away from the wall, the backs of Richie’s knees hitting the bed. Eddie climbing atop the mattress thoughtlessly, never once breaking contact with Richie’s lips as he groped at him, fingers gripping the back of his shirt as he tugged.  They broke apart with a wet sound, a string of saliva connected between their mouths. Richie shivered as Eddie rucked up the hem of his shirt, warms hands roaming, exploring the skin of his torso with fervent motions.

“Wait, Eddie, Eddie—“ he panted as Eddie pulled the shirt over his head, palms making broad strokes across his chest, nipples hardened, sensitive peaks on the topography of his body as the cool air hit his skin.

_ But his protests were swallowed by his own moan as Eddie started kissing down his neck. _

Richie shook his head, rousing himself out of the memory as his head gave a pointed, dull throb. The words echoed in his headYou’ve got something in your past, and it’s chasing you, Richie.  You better sort that shit out.

“You keeping up back there, Richie?” Bill called from up ahead.

Richie watched Eddie’s shoulders hitch, and then straighten, as if he was making a painstaking effort not to meet his gaze. He shook his head, trudging faster through the water.

“Yeah.”

_ As they walked towards the gaping entrance of the sewers, Richie closed his eyes and let the darkness swallow him whole. _

* * *

_ Eddie was beginning to regret this.  _

To be fair— he had made countless stupid decisions over the past twenty four hours, over the past twenty seven years. But this, he thought to himself as sewage water sloshed wetly over his ankle, this had to take the cake.  What was he thinking? He was wading through millions of gallons of whatever passed under Derry with fresh wounds still open on his skin. He was walking into the place meant to be his grave hardly three days after leaving the cistern for the second— and what he swore would be the last— time.  Even without the killer clown— which still couldn’t be completely ruled out— there were very real, very dangerous forces at play here. The concrete walls were crumbling, metal pipes groaning and creaking as water passed through the old mechanism, the whole structure trembling as Derry furiously tried to bury the past— and whatever evil lived there.  It was an architect’s nightmare and a spelunker’s wet dream.

_ It’s like those creature features Rich used to drag us to _ _,_ Eddie thought nauseously, _except when it’s happening to you, you don’t see the things that lurk in the dark._

The water lapped agreeably at his legs.

_ Greywater _ _,_ he remembered grimly.

_Have you ever heard of a staph infection?_ his mind babbled,  _have you—_

_ —Ever heard of a staph infection?” _

Richie grinned at him in the dark, rebelliously crooked teeth baring themselves to him, eyes twinkling and huge under those coke-bottle glasses. Eddie— as he so often did in times of such unrest, began to take inventory of the hazards.

Richie’s cargo shorts doing nothing to stop the filth from splattering across his legs and into the open scrapes across his knees? Check. The holes in the soles of his sneakers he refuses to fix? Check.  Richie’s carelessness could often make him an unknowing danger to himself, and, he thought grimly as he waved a stick at him threateningly, sewage wicking off the tip, a danger to Eddie.

“Oh, I’ll show you a staph infection!”

Eddie yelped as the cool water hit his skin, going red as he yelled a bit hysterically, “That is so not funny, Richie! Have you ever heard of listeria? Do you even know how many germs are in that water!”

Stan shook his head, mouth turned into a prissy line. It was the closest show of allyship Eddie could hope for from him when covered in piss.

“That’s not—

—Funny,”  Ben finished, rousing Eddie from his thoughts. He jumped a little, startling the water as it swam at his feet.

“Huh?”

Bill clapped him once on the back, a firm pressure just above his hip, “W-W-Woah. E-Easy there, E-E-Eddie.”

“Just...” Ben said, “We keep coming down here, no matter how hard we try to stay away. It’s like...it’s like we have no control over it.” He paused thoughtfully, “It’s kind of funny.”

Eddie didn’t have much of a response to that, and judging off the neutral expressions of the rest of the Losers, nobody would have said much of anything, the words simply left to die in the darkness like everything else.

Except, Richie could never be quiet.

“Well, I don’t know about you...” he drawled, low and resigned. It reminded Eddie of those corrupt detectives slaving over a case file with a cigarette dangling from their lips. Sure enough, just a few feet behind him, he could hear Richie flicking a lighter on and off. “But I’m not laughing.”

His tone was harsh— a tone seldom used on nice, gentle boys such as Ben.

The flame spluttered to life again, bathing his face in a pale yellow light. Eddie could see how life had had its way with him in the lines etched across his face, but he was perhaps most unnerved by the absence of a smile on his face.  Eddie always assumed Richie would go to his grave with a chuckle barely dying his throat, a grin tugging violently at either side of his face, glassy eyes winking in the morning sun, like they were giving one last good chuck.

_How can we be so different yet exactly the same? _ Eddie wondered dizzily,  _after all this time..._

“Yeah,” Ben said. _ Flick. Flick. Flick. _ “Me either.”

Silence. And then Richie’s voice, quieter than Eddie had ever heard it.

“We’re really doing this, huh?”

Eddie’s heart lurched in his chest. 

_ No__,_ he wanted to say,  _no, Rich, we’re not going back there, are you crazy? You’ve had a lot of stupid ideas over the years, like putting itching powder in Henry Bowers’ shoes, or buying beer with Went’s ID, or that time you made us swim in the Quarry in the rain and we were all sick for a week after, but Richie, this has got to be your stupidest one yet. We’ll pack up our luggage and leave this shithole of a town and it’ll ache for awhile but soon enough we’ll be forgetting again, and the pain will be senseless. Isn’t it always? But that will be fine, Rich, because hell, I’d give it all up to live a life believing that dead is dead and nightmares are just nightmares. I’d give it all up to forget._

_Stanley, I love you, I really do, but I can’t go back in there again, I just can’t, _ Eddie thought, and he swore, somehow, he felt that Stan understood.

He ached for Bill to pat his back like he used to do in moments of such uncertainty. He ached to hear him say, so soft and sure:

_ “It’s a-alright, Eh-Eddie. It’s o-okay.” _

Instead, he stopped, lower lip stiffened as he gazed at Eddie, and then the rest of the Losers in turn. They watched, horrifically complacent as he gave his ministrations.

“If I was Stan...I’d want us to find me.”

And just like that, like the camel’s back breaking, or like Betty Ripsom’s other shoe coming to a drop, they were moving again, Bill’s word as good as law. Even paralyzed in his fear, the cool, clammy grip of terror squeezing his lungs, he found himself walking through the water, trudging on ahead.  It was horrifying, he thought, how easily they all fell back into their roles. Like they couldn’t help but be the people their childhoods had made them out to be. That playground rules maybe governed the whims and ways of life more of the world than previously thought. That maybe, Eddie swallowed, somewhere in that great tapestry of life, a few threads had come loose, tangling and binding them all inextricably to their past.

“E-Eh-Eddie,” Bill said, “s-since you s-s-saw what happened in the d-d-dream...you should lead.”

The Losers looked at him expectantly.

_The Navigator__,_ he thought grimly,  of course.

And like the last puzzle piece falling into place, as the dust settled— Eddie knew with a morbid certainty that this was what he was meant to do, and in that reconciliation of the life he knew and the death he was perhaps destined for, he found a sense of internal strength he’d never known he was capable of.

_I’m going to get my friends, and I’m going to get the hell out of here for good, _ he thought.

Nodding slowly, Eddie moved to the front of the group. And after taking one last look at the bright halo of summer light shining just beyond the concrete entrance, he took a step forward and began to lead his friends through the darkness.


	32. Chapter Thirty Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, an entire month has gone by since the last chapter, where the hell has the time gone? I'm sorry for the delay, and to everyone still reading, know that I am still writing this story and have a full plan for the rest of it, and will be trying to get back to releasing a chapter a week. As for the delay, I honestly don't have much to say about that. The first half sat in my drafts for a few weeks, but I couldn't seem to find the will to write, even the last 500 or so words I procrastinated finishing for a solid three days. Seasonal depression has been kicking me to the curb and to be honest, the last month or so has been really hard. So, happy holidays, and I hope you guys got some nice things and got to spend time around those you love! Consider this extra long chapter my gift to you, and please enjoy! <3

Eddie had been navigating for over an hour, if the glaring white text on Richie’s phone screen was at all accurate. An hour of sloshing through blood, piss, and filth, an hour of that deafening silence, that ravenous darkness.

Like most unnerving experiences, it seemed to last a lifetime.

“I don’t get it,” Richie spoke to the convent of shadows. They spurred along, uncaring, stretching and winding around the concrete walls like black swan dancers. Above him, a steep pipe groaned.

_ Yeah, join the club, kid _ _,_ Richie thought grimly, locking his jaw like a vise as he knocked through the water like a bullet on a kill mission.

A ghastly wisp of a breath filtered out from his mouth— the tremulous and feeble foetus of a sigh that would never live to see the light of day.  Richie trudged along, shuddering as the room gave another bleated wail, like a phantom unhappy to be roused from its bed of eternal sleep.

“This place is one good shove away from completely collapsing— Eddie, you’re a risk analyst. Shouldn’t you know this is like, completely stupid?”

Eddie hardly spared him a backward glance, and maybe it was for the better, because as the swinging lamplight sent dim yellow circles across his face, he could see the trauma behind those eyes. Eddie had changed. Richie had too.  Change, like a gifthorse, is better not looked in the mouth. Because, beneath that glamour, that shining, golden exterior, deep inside that black maw, is the fragments of your past as life swallows you up like a flame consumes a wick.

_Out, brief candle, _ Richie thought deliriously, _ life is but a walking shadow that struts and frets its hour upon the stage, and is heard from no more._

He watched the crack of light flicker over Eddie’s eyes, fear rampant like a wild stallion in that irises, air static and stagnant and stale.

_ It is a tale, told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying...nothing. _

Eddie sighed, lungs exhaling like floorboards reluctantly settling back into place. Richie felt like a kid again, sneaking around in the dead of night, both exhilarated and petrified by the darkness. Only, Richie didn’t know which floorboards were loose, and he didn’t fully understand the consequences if he were to be caught. It was like a game of poker where the stakes were unwritten and the dealer smiled  _all the time._

“Yeah, well, all of this is stupid, in case you haven’t noticed.”

Apparently, Richie couldn’t see consequence if it decked him in the face, because he just kept talking.

“Yeah, but shouldn’t we not, you know, push it? You only get lucky so many times a week, you know.”

_That’s what she said! That’s what she said!_ Richie’s mind babbled nonsensically.  _Make a joke, Richie! Make a joke!_

Eddie rounded on him, pinning him to the wall with a terrifying gaze. His hand balled into a fist at his side, the other tightening palely around the flashlight until his knuckles were a holy shade of white.

“We’re finding him. End of discussion. And if you don’t like it...” Eddie paused, like a man with his finger on the trigger, blanks of his eyes boring into Richie like a sniper looks at his target, Death a contender, yet not quite a friend.

Offhandedly, Richie wondered if anyone could ever truly make peace with Death, or if the war would be waged until it took the last person back to the weeds and into their wormy grave in that shallow, shallow earth.  You could warm yourself with tales of continuity and saccharine sweet lies, but, in the end of it, the dirt was just as cruel of a destination.  Can a person truly love another? Ever truly know another? Richie’s mind demanded with the frantic fervour of a conspiracist. Because, it spurred on, you could keep your creature comforts and pretend like there are things on this earth that last forever and there are suns that never set in the west, but at the end of it all, the simple truth is that we all die alone.

_ Of course _ _,_ Richie thought. No one had ever truly made peace with Death. No one had ever even been able to make peace with Life. He saw it, felt it. The very existence of fear dignified the truth.

_Say it,_ Richie’s gaze challenged,  _don’t back down now._

Eddie swallowed thickly, confliction flicking across his face like a T.V. surfing for channels. It remained static for a moment, and Richie could hear the low distant hum and whirr over the pounding of his own writhing heart.  Eddie’s shoulders—along with his resolve, stiffened. He looked once again at Richie.

“And if you don’t like it...you can leave.”

From up above, a small rock dislodged from the gnarled tapestry of stone, hitting the water like a shot. Like a man struck by a bullet, Richie stumbled back. Like the cistern, Richie’s world began to crumble.

* * *

It was only two minutes after that that Richie found an out.

“Fucking Pennywise,” he grunted, narrowly avoiding something that looked suspiciously like a human hand. 

With just a dim white light illuminating the dark pathways of the sewers, his other senses were impossible heightened. His heart was a wet pulsing lump battering up his ribs, he could feel each thin, reedy breath stalling in his throat and piercing through his chest like a church stake.  Church...God, how many years had it been since he last went there—twenty six, twenty seven years? Jesus.  Richie had attended Sunday service quite regularly for the first eleven or twelve years of his life. His parents themselves were quite religious, and through their finer—albeit rare moments of fondness towards Richie, he found it in himself to bite the bullet and tag along. 

A child’s love for their parents is strong, and love breeds reverence, which is dangerously close to complacency.

Plus, Richie was an odd child, and if Went and Maggie Tozier didn’t try to wheedle the alien strangeness out of their son, they had never done anything in their life. Church was just one of their methods, like a rusty cog in a machine meant to suck the oddities of Richie. But like a vacuum, some things always came coughing and spluttering back up— those were the things met with the cruel heel of Maggie and Went’s shoes as they swept the less desirable parts of their son under the rug.

Richie hadn’t minded all that much— church wasn’t all too bad. The service was interesting sometimes, you could sing as loud as you wanted, and sometimes they even gave you wine.  But Richie was still Richie, and as his focus dwindled, he found himself getting into the same rag-tag mischief he lived and breathed and walked and strutted. It was only in his nature. On one occasion, he had snuck his new yo-yo into church, covertly walking the dog under his seat.  It had been going rather well until he attempted the infamous ‘around the world’ motion and accidentally flung his yo-yo into a stained glass wall.

His mother had been furious, extracting small shards of glass from his palms, which had been branded with the fiery red sores of a good whipping. Richie was quiet, almost calm in light of the chaos.

“Do you think Jesus would have wanted you to have a yo-yo?” his mother had admonished him, fingernails scraping a little too deeply into the soft of his palm.

Richie just shrugged, answering honestly, “Yes.”

That particular memory tasted of Lifebuoy soap and the cool, lenient high of a good chuck.

Richie had been banned from church for two weeks, before his parents decided that it was clearly more dangerous to deprive Richie of whatever hint of salvation one might receive at church than a bit of broken glass. Begrudgingly, graciously— it depends who you ask, the pastor had allowed him back in, under the stipulation that Richie would have to empty his pockets out before stepping inside.  The rule later extended to his church shoes, after Richie had stuffed a few rogue bottlerockets inside and nearly burned the soles of his feet, and it was only three weeks of Richie sitting petulantly in the pew, barefoot and with outturned pockets that he stopped attending altogether.

It was a pity he couldn’t go anymore, he remembered telling Bill, because they could have used some of the donation money to buy firecrackers— or as Richie called them, in his infamous Chinese Coolie voice, ‘fireclackers.’

“Y-Y-Yeah r-ruh-right, you wuh-wet end. G-Guh-Good luck w-wuh-with that,” Bill had responded, sipping his soda.

“I’m serious, Big Bill! I’m super sneaky, they wouldn’t even know!”

The rest of the Losers, having been idly listening in to the conversation like a Sunday funny on cable, began to laugh. Bill, Mike, Bev, Ben, Stan...even Eddie.

“What?” Richie had demanded, bewildered and a little offended that they never laughed  this hard at his real jokes.

“Y-Yuh-You know, Richie, s-suh-sometimes you r-ruh-really are f-fuh-funny.”

Richie’s confused expression had only made them laugh harder, and he remembered Eddie falling backward into the grass— something he would chide himself for moments later when he came to, but for that moment, his cheeks flushed pink and eyes glittering in the summer sun, he laughed. Hard.  And that was the other thing— Eddie. He used to go down to the traintracks on lazy Sunday afternoons. Richie had asked him about it once, and he simply shrugged, looking a bit wistful before saying, “I dunno. I just like them I guess.”

And Richie had never questioned it again. Especially once he found out that Eddie sometimes stopped on his route outside Richie’s church, just to listen to the sound of music echoing through the walls. They got into a bit of a routine, him and Eddie. He would finish service and grin broadly at the summer sky and Eddie lazing on the sidewalk below. Sometimes they would even get ice cream, or a rocketpop.

Looking back, Richie realized those might have been the best days of his life.

Rousing himself from his memories, he shuddered again. The arching walkways of the cistern were almost cathedral-like, and Richie could nearly hear the wheezy sound of his breath bouncing off the walls.  The water was more congealed here, thick as blood. Far from the dwindling daylight, it seemed colder, the kind of cold that cut through bones and stiffened your joints. He shivered in his t-shirt, hairs standing up on the back of his neck, body one large goosebump as the water lapped at his feet.  He swung the flashlight idly down the halls, squinting through still-cracked lenses at the unfamiliar corridor before him. His eyes creaked in their sockets, struggling to adjust to the dimness of the room, like humans weren’t meant to dwell in such darkness for long. Richie realized with a belated horror that he was lost.

And that’s when the flashlight went out.

“No,” Richie muttered, voice rising in panic, “no, no!”

The red light on his screen bleated weakly:  _‘Low Power__’_ it blinked, and as Richie frantically pressed the button, it gave one last mechanical shudder before turning off, submerging Richie in complete and utter darkness.

_Okay, Richie, calm down,_ he thought deliriously.  _Calm down?_ He was stuck in a sewer that went on for miles with no food, no water, and no light. He was a dead man.

_ So this is how it ends _ _,_ Richie thought, _ this is how I die._

The water sloshed a few feet away, quick and succinct, like a figure cutting through the tide. Richie slowly looked down at his own feet, which were plastered to the ground, paralyzed with fear. Reluctantly, he looked straight, squinting in the darkness.  The sound started again, faster this time. By some ancient instinct, Richie suddenly knew that he was being watched.

He stumbled back just as the figure came into view. Its mouth dripped with some red-black goo, lip split open, haunted eyes seeming to melt inside their sockets. Upon a closer look, Richie realized he was clutching at his stomach, palms of his hands stained red, fresh blood spilling over the knuckles.

_“Eddie—_“ Richie whispered.

“Wanna play loogie?” he said, the sound garbled— not unlike that of a a wounded deer, and the blackness bubbled up from his mouth.

Richie stared in horror, blood ice-cold through his veins, fear scratchy in the back of his throat, tongue dry as sandpaper. The hairs stood up on the back of his neck, like someone blew coldly across the back of it.

“Hey, flamer,” a voice whispered, clammy hand clamping down on his shoulder. Richie turned around, trembling, mind feeling like a rogue bull fleeing the coop, running for the hills.  Flick , a light spluttered to life. Illuminated by the putrid yellow glow was the twisted, maggot-eaten face of Patrick Hockstetter.

_ “Truth or dare?” _

* * *

“I don’t understand,” Ben said thoughtfully, voice incredibly level given the circumstances. Eddie didn’t know what a ‘we’re stuck inside a crumbling cistern,’ voice was supposed to sound like, but this certainly wasn’t it. Ben sounded like he was talking a long walk on the beach, or hosting a podcast. “Didn’t this place cave in? Eddie, when you—“

Ben trailed off.  _Died_— that was the word on the tip of his tongue, on the forefront of his mind. Wasn’t it for all of them? It lingered like a bad aftertaste, sour and smoky, and death was never a subject of silence, punctuated by shrill banshee wails in the night as the rustling sound of a tumbleweed passing through a ghosttown, a convent of shadows. Eddie, when you— _died. _Why couldn’t they just say it? Eddie was there when it happened! And yet, here they were, acting like it was some big secret. But it wasn’t— the weight of death never was.

“This place...all of Derry, really, it has a power,” Mike started, flashlight casting pale orbs of light around the room, dust floating idly in the air. “It seems to regenerate, multiply...over, and over and over again.”

“But Pennywise is dead,” Beverly said, “so why is it still happening?”

Mike sighed, “When we killed It...we used our power. And the thing about power, is that it lingers...and as long as it lingers...”

He trailed off. Eddie wondered if he simply let it die or if it was reaped in front of him, like how heavy topics sometimes were.

“So, you’re saying there’s some kind of force in Derry linked to us?”

Ben looked deep in thought, processing Beverly’s proposition. “That’s why we can’t stay away...”

“Think of it like a battery,” Mike offered, pipes dripping languidly in the distance, “there’s an energy source— the energy source being us, in this case. That energy travels, and it fuels something, which is Derry, in this case.” Mike paused, “You can’t just cut off the power, because it will linger. So, how do you exhaust the energy?”

The rest of the Losers stared blankly at him, eighth grade physics seemingly like a distant dream amidst the chaos surrounding them.

Luckily, Mike wasn’t really looking for an answer.

“You finish the circuit,” he said.

“S-S-So you’re s-suh-saying...” Bill frowned.

“I’m saying that maybe Derry won’t rest because there’s a part of us, deep down inside, that isn’t ready to leave.”

“S-S-So how do we do that?” Bill said quietly, “How do we leave?”

“Most things end the same way that they started,” Mike said, staring down the darkened corridor, “we need to finish what we came to do in the first place.” He turned to look at them, “We need to bring our friends home.”

A reedy silence followed, and thus eclipsed by someone speaking up from the back.

“E-Eh-Eddie,” Bill said, voice the fragile kind of calm that it was when someone was teetering over the precipice of hysteria. “W-Wuh-Where’s R-Ruh-Richie?”

Eddie stopped in his tracks. He turned around, everyone following suit, unblinking in their horror, deafening in their fear.

_ If It was still alive, we’d all be dead by now _ _,_ Eddie thought suddenly. He didn’t know if the thought comforted or unnerved him. It was less of the complete elimination of fear as it was the illumination of previously unconsidered dangers.

Eddie’s heart jumped into his throat, “What do you mean _‘where’s Richie’_?”

No one said anything for a moment, then again, nothing really needed to be spoken; the overwhelming silence, not to mention the gaping six-foot hole where Richie once stood, said it all.

“He was right behind me,” Ben said in a whisper, “just a few seconds ago, I swear.”

Mike looked at Eddie uneasily, “You don’t think he actually...”

“Of course he did!” Eddie yelped, panic clawing at his throat, “Fuck, Richie, you fucking idiot—“

He stopped, turning to the others, “Keep moving, go get Stan. If you keep heading North, you should come to a synagogue. He’s in there.”

“Where are you going?” Ben asked, wide-eyed, and it dawned on Eddie for the first time in his life that moment that he may actually be looked to as a beacon of guidance.

He hardly let the feeling warm him before snuffing it out with his own steely determination and the knowledge that the world was quick to crumble around those who think with their hearts.

“To find Richie and get him out of here before he dies too.”

* * *

Eddie’s heart kept the time with each thud against his bruised ribs. Four hundred...five hundred beats, his breath a kettle whistle rattling in his lungs.

_ Eddie runs quite fast he runs quite fast when you’re not here runs quite fast when there’s nobody around to remind him of how delicate he is and I see in his face Mrs. Kaspbrak that he knows even now at the age of nine he knows that the biggest favor in the world he could do himself would be to run fast in any direction you’re not going let him go Mrs. Kaspbrak let him RUN. _

The words ran tirelessly through his mind in a feverish trail, lungs searing like they’d been thrown into a bonfire, smoldering with the kindle as the night sky burst aflame. Each swallow was sharp and piercing, like smoke was swallowing him in all its greyish haze. Memories of tall grasses whipping against his shins as the summer sun winked like a medallion flooded his brain, and as he let his eyes close shut, he could almost taste his own sweet childhood on his tongue.

His joints protested below him. 

_ He was getting way too old for this. _

He slowed to a clumsy half-limp, right leg following lamely behind his left like a stick dragging through slick mud.

“Richie!” he called out, swallowing dryly. His mouth was like a desert, sun-bleached and barren, save for a few bare twigs, white-weathered and frail at the limbs. A hot orange feverish bile crawled up his throat like the sun, rising above the boonies in the East. Eddie pushed it down.

Black water sloshed around his ankles, burping loudly below him. In the dank, rotted corner, his heavy footfalls wheedled a startled squeak out of some small creature, sending it skittering into the darkness. He shuddered.  Why was he down here? he wondered as his flashlight sent pallid spheres of white dancing around the room. Richie was probably fine, just following Eddie’s (foolish, in hindsight) offer. And if he wasn’t...well, if he wasn’t, then Eddie sure wasn’t doing himself any favours chasing after him.  Richie had a knack for disappearing when he wanted to, and who was Eddie kidding? He was no stranger to these sewers, none of them were. But Eddie perhaps knew them the best. Only, the thing is, there are things in this world that can never be understood, and the people that know them best know nothing more than the simple truth that some things are better left buried out of sight.

To say Eddie knew where he was going was dangerous. It was a thought that would warm him as he stumbled through the darkness— the darkness that would be crueller as the same thought exiled him to his grave. What was he doing down here, flirting with Death and dancing around his own mortality?

If Richie wanted to leave, that was his choice. He was a grown-ass adult for God’s sake, and perfectly capable of making his own decisions! And so was Eddie! So why was he here, following Richie into the fire?

He always did.

Maybe it was Richie’s commanding presence— loud and boisterous, that strung him along. Or at least, that’s what his mother seemed to think every time she cleaned Eddie’s freshly scraped knees each time he returned from a day in the Barrens or the Quarry.

_ “That Tozier boy is a bad influence, Eddie! Richie made you do this, didn’t he?” _

And Eddie would nod mutely, watching the cotton ball glide over his wounds, feel the rubbing alcohol nip at his skin. But at night, as he lay in bed with tired soles and bandaged knees, an easy smiling tugging at his face, buried from sight in the pillow clutched to his chest, he knew that wasn’t the case, was never the case.  Richie went and Eddie followed. It was as simple as that. And maybe that was the scary thing— the idea that it was always meant to be_ RichieAndEddie,_ because what happens if something changes and Richie goes somewhere Eddie can’t follow? 

What happens then?

Eddie laughed drily, “God, Richie, I’m making it sound like—“

He stopped, voice cutting off as his feet remained planted to the ground, water sloshing up the leg of his jeans.

He understood the weight of those words— felt it bear down on his shoulders. It was carefully considered and yet it was mindless, every inch of Eddie’s better sense told him to stop, but he found the words coming from his mouth anyways, and more terrifyingly, he found himself  meaning them. It was like the more Eddie tried to resist— the more the words demanded to be heard. Maybe humanity’s desire to be heard, Eddie thought, outweighed the very human act of resistance, of pride.

To follow someone blindly, into the crossfire, into the barrens, into the darkest ends of the earth. Well, you could only have so much plausible deniability that you...that Eddie...that he....

“Like _I love you,_ or something,” Eddie breathed.

He thought of Richie, so young and brave in that cistern, eyes fearful beneath those stupid Coke-bottle frames. He remembered him looking over his shoulder, where Eddie was clutching his inhaler tightly, white-knuckling it on the only object of solace he’d ever known.  He remembered Richie smiling, and then for just a moment, as they fell behind the others, squeezing Eddie’s hand. It was over nearly before it even started, but in that brief second, Richie was gentle, Richie was kind, and Richie was brave in a kind of way Eddie thought at the time reminded him a whole lot of Bill. But now, years later, he realized it was a kind of bravery entirely unique to Richie.

_“I love you,”_ Eddie whispered, the water going ice cold at his feet, “or something.”

And everything was still for a moment, just the slow sound of water coursing through rusted pipes and Eddie’s own quiet breathing. He took a step forward, waiting for it all to fall apart around him, but the ground remained steady at his feet, pale yellow shining down the corridor like a lamplight as the world carried on around him.

Eddie began to walk again, and as the coolness washed over him, he began to call for Richie again.

* * *

Eddie found him sprawled in the water another half a kilometre away. He had stopped for a breather, breath rattling shrilly in his lungs, and nearly had a heart attack when something all too human-like brushed against his leg.  He breathed a sigh of relief upon realizing it was Richie, but the cool terror was quick to return as Richie failed to stir at the loud yelp Eddie let out or the flashlight beaming down brightly on his face.

Eddie crouched in the water, hovering over his unmoving form.

“C’mon, Rich, wake up,” he muttered, shaking his shoulder, grimacing as the bone dug into his palm.

Richie just remained frozen beneath him, pale and stiff. Eddie’s heart jumped into his throat and he choked on it as he jostled him again.

“Richie, come on, dude, wake up!”

He didn’t so much as stir, not even as Eddie’s breath fanned hotly over his cheek. Eddie let out a shallow sigh, eyes boring down on Richie’s face, screwed up as if he were having an awful dream. That’s what this all felt like, Eddie thought, a really long, awful dream.  Trembling where his hands steadied themselves on the concrete floor, he leaned in closer, heart pounding bruisingly fast against his ribs.

And that’s when Richie woke up, floundering and gasping for air like a fish out of water.

_“Jesus Christ!”_ Eddie yelped, narrowly jumping out of the way as Richie jolted upwards like a shot.

“Hockstetter,” Richie wheezed, lungs squeaking like a field mouse, “where is he?”

Eddie frowned, “ Patrick  Hockstetter? Richie, he died years ago, remember?” he shivered, “It got him.”

Richie squeezed his eyes shut, firmly shaking his head. He was a sicky pale green colour and offhandedly, Eddie wondered if he’d contracted cholera.

“No, Eds, I saw him, I swear. He had his lighter and—“ his eyes rolled weakly to the back of his head and he fell back into the water, groaning.

“Fuck.”

Eddie’s mouth formed into a thin, prissy line. Grimacing, he reached into the murky water and cradled Richie’s head.

“Woah, Eds, what’cha doin’ there?” Richie slurred, wincing slightly.

Eddie drew him in a little closer, frowning, “Did you hit your head?”

Richie laughed, the sound muddled, “Tha’s what my teachers used to ask me,” he mumbled, “told ‘em no, this was all natural, baby.”

Eddie shook his head as Richie laughed nonsensically, “I’m trying to see if you have a concussion, Rich, work with me.”

Richie seemed to protest, and then went limp in Eddie’s arms, giving into the gentle manoeuvring and Eddie’s surprisingly soft voice.

“Dunno,” he said quietly, “passed out.”

Eddie said nothing, tilting Richie’s chin up and checking for fractured, staring into his eyes to see if they had glazed over.  Richie laughed, reaching up, “You got that nervous look again,” he made a movement that Eddie assumed was supposed to be a brush against his cheek, but he succeeded in nothing more than a light bonk to the face. “You have that little wrinkle between your eyebrows.”

Eddie shook his head, “Shut up, Richie,” he said softly, and then, “how many fingers am I holding up?”

Richie pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose, squinting in the dark, “Three.”

“How many now?” Eddie prompted, holding up a few more.

“Six.”

“And now?”

“Two.”

“Alright, you’re good,” Eddie sighed, mostly in relief, but Richie didn’t have to know that, he thought to himself as he shot him a mildly annoyed look for good measure.

“Got the go-ahead from Doctor K?” Richie grinned crookedly.

“Yeah, yeah,” Eddie shook his head, helping Richie to his feet.

“You’re forgetting something,” Richie said plainly, staring back at Eddie.

“What,” he sighed.

“You didn’t kiss it better.”

“I am  _not _ kissing you when you’re covered in sewer water.”

Richie grinned, “So if I wasn’t covered in sewer water, you’d kiss me?”

Eddie rolled his eyes, slinging a steadying arm around Richie— strictly for safety reasons, of course. “Don’t push it.”

“That’s not a no,” Richie continued, seeming satisfied, “y’know I should have stayed unconscious for longer.Maybe Dr. K would have given me mouth-to-mouth.”

Eddie sighed, “I should have left you here to die in the sewers.”

“But you didn’t,” Richie said, and there was something more to his tone, something curious. He glanced sideways at him, “why did you come after me?”

Eddie felt his eyes burning holes into the side of his face. He looked straight ahead, not daring to look into those blue eyes, because so easily could he abandon his inhibitions along that stormy shore, it would be so effortless...so dangerous.

“You would have done the same for me,” Eddie remembered Bill’s words, and flushed, looking at Richie, “you know you did.”

They walked in silence for a few minutes, nothing but the sound of the water swimming at their feet and the throaty growl of the sewers to fill the space. Eddie gasped suddenly, hand clutching at his stomach. Richie’s hand immediately settled on his back.

“You alright?” he said, wide-eyed as Eddie rucked up the hem of his shirt, revealing gnarled-looking sutures.

“Jesus!” Richie recoiled, “How’d that happen?”

Eddie winced, going green at the sight of the twisted skin, “Must’ve happened when I was running after you.”

Richie paled, “You can’t just keep following me into fire you know,” he said softly, unguarded, and in the darkness, his eyes twinkled like dying stars.

Eddie looked at him unblinking, more sure now than ever in his life. 

“Then don’t walk into fire.”

Richie seemed stunned, fingers branding a bruise into his forearm as he tugged at it, eyes begging to be met, “Eddie—“

And then a voice came down the corridor, a garbled yell that bounced off the walls, piercing through his chest like an ice pick, the reedy, unbearable cold blooming in his veins.  Eddie looked into Richie’s eyes, so open and vulnerable— pleading, begging. He felt the weight of the moment, felt it bear down on his shoulders. 

_ I’m sorry _ _,_ he thought, and pulled away.

As the shouts grew louder and as water turned to pavement, Eddie took off down the hall, tears pricking at his eyes. 

* * *

They opened the door to more shouting, the sound echoing off the cathedral walls. Past the rotting pews, sprawled across the cracked tile of the ground, four figure sat huddled around an unmoving mass laid out on the ground.

Wide-eyed, and Richie at his heels, Eddie rushed over.

Beverly was sobbing, held back by Ben, who stared down at Stan’s limp body with haunted eyes. He looked a little green, stunned as his fiancée writhed in his arms. Mike stood off to the side, sombrely watching as Bill knelt over Stan, frantically murmuring something under his breath.

“S-S-Stay b-b-back!” he yelled to the others, and with an uneasy glance between them, Richie and Eddie crouched a few feet away.

Eddie’s stomach was churning like the tide, sickeningly warm waves of nausea crashing over him, ears ringing shrilly as blood flooded them and blurry spots danced over his vision. He steadied himself on the ground. His skin ached where the sutures were trying to split, searing crosses of pain radiating hotly up his ribs. He fought back bile in the back of his throat and the overwhelming urge to collapse onto Richie beside him.  Stan had never looked worse, ghastly pale with blackish blood dripping waxily over his protruding veins, frail and thin like a starved man. His face was screwed up, frozen in a look of perpetual horror. His arms were splayed spread-eagle above his head, like he was falling clumsily through space and time.

Bill had seen better days too, looking older and more tired than Eddie had ever seen him. It was perhaps the first time in his life that the rock-solid illusion of ‘Big Bill’ was shattered, revealing the very haunted, very scared man underneath.

“C-C-C’mon S-S-Stanley!” Bill blubbered, hands bearing down shakily on his chest, “C’mon!”

Stan lay there motionless, skin appearing waxy under the dim, flickering lights. His body jostled like a ragdoll as his fist collided with his sternum. Behind him, Bev was reaching out to touch his shoulder, sobbing.

“Bill...” she cried, voice breaking and dissolving into nothing,_ “Bill...”_

“C-C-C’mon! C-C-C’mon! C-C-C—“ he grunted, not so much pushing down on his chest as he was punching it now. As sigil candles cast pale flickers of light around them, he saw the slick path of tears pouring down his face.

“C’mon Stan!” he screamed at the still figure below his own, “C’mon!”

And then Bev was pulling him away, hands tugging at his forearm, hair falling limply over her face, plastered to her cheek with tears, “Bill! Bill, stop!” she choked out, drawing him near to her, she took a ragged breath, “He’s not coming, he’s not coming...back.”

Bill watched mutely at the greenish-purple bruises scattered across his pale skin, breathing heavily. Bev patted at his shoulder, inconsolable herself, “It’s okay...it’s okay.”

Eddie heard a broken sob beside him, and was taken aback to see Richie’s face crumpling, drawn to his knees and arms limp, parallel to the ground. It was in that icy shock that he realized the hot tears trailing down his own face, seated under his chin as they rolled down into the neckline of his shirt.

Shuddering, looking blearily at the trembling man beside him, the broken one in front of them beating down on a dead one, and the six sets of haunted eyes illuminated by candlelight in the place where darkness not only consumes, but reigns, Eddie found himself reaching out. His fingertips grazed Richie’s, feather-light and tentative.

Not daring to look at his face as it stared candidly at his, Eddie closed his hand around Richie’s, squeezing once. 

Bill’s face crumpled again, and he shrugged Beverly off his shoulder as he rushed back to Stan’s side.

“Bill, Bill _stop!_” she said.

_“C’mon!”_ he cried, fist colliding with Stan’s still chest once again, and then he went silent, nothing more than the rhythmic thumping of his body to fill the silence.

It was horrific, and Eddie felt his stomach lurch at the sight. Just as Mike was about to pull him away, he took in a ragged breath, thrashing in Bill’s arms.

“Stanley!” they yelled in unison, rushing by his side, “Stanley!”

Stanley writhed and screamed, tears pouring down his face. Eddie realized with a renewed sense of horror that he was bleeding from the old wounds on his face left from the previous encounter at Neibolt, and he wondered as Stanley cried if history was repeating itself.

“It’s o-o-okay S-S-Stan,” Bill soothed, hugging him close to his chest. He rested his chin on his head, face buried in his hair, just above his ear, “It’s o-o-okay.”

Bill’s face peered over Stan’s form, and Eddie could see the emotion painted across his face, feel it ripple through the air— fear, horror, tragedy...but something else too. It flickered briefly over his face and could be easily ignored by someone who didn’t know what to look for. It was soft and genuine, and through that haze of memory, he remembered Richie looking at him just the same when he pulled him out of the sewers.

_ Oh. _

One by one, the Losers started to crowd around Stan, wrapping their arms around him just like they had all those years ago. Only this time, they weren’t going anywhere.  Soon, their sobs dissolved into nothing, and as they exited the cold synagogue, Stan slung over Mike’s shoulder, the last candle spluttered out to ashes, engulfing the room in a familiar darkness the Losers would never have to be subjected to again.

“Well, take a good look,” Mike said, pausing by the doorjamb, “this will be the last time we see this place, God willing.”

“Can’t say I’ll miss it,” Ben said grimly, hand growing a little firmer on Beverly’s waist.

“Yeah,” Richie spoke quietly, “what you said, Haystack.”

As they began the long walk through the corridors, a metallic wail echoed through the sewers. Moving forward, into the light, Eddie took Richie’s hand.  For a moment, amidst the chaos and unknowns, there was amonumental feeling of peace amongst the Losers, and for that moment, it was enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thoughts? Feelings? Also that resuscitation scene with Stan and Bill is 100% based off that one scene from LOST:  
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKHrtIPCe-0 
> 
> Great show! I highly recommend it, it reminds me a bit of IT because it mixes paranormal with drama and relationships and is all around a work of art, it's one of my favourites. :) We're actually getting close to the finale of this book, and I expect there to be maybe around 5 more chapters left, give or take a little. After I finish this, I have some more stuff in the works! I have another Reddie fic in mind and might be releasing some Reylo stuff on the side, so if that interests you, keep an eye out for that! 
> 
> But as for this fic, what do you think is going to happen? What would you like to see happen? Let me know in the comments below and if you're enjoying this story, subscribe to be notified when it updates. And always, come chat with me on tumblr @sweetiebrak to discuss the story or just hang out! <3


	33. Chapter Thirty Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's a playlist I made based off this story, each song corresponds to the things that have happened or WILL happen in this fic, so give it a listen and enjoy!
> 
> https://open.spotify.com/?_ga=2.30739196.23086178.1581306299-1442065334.1569875774
> 
> (If the link doesn't work, you can find it on Spotify, the playlist is the same as the fic title and my account is @sweetiebrak !)
> 
> Also follow me on TikTok @sweetiebrak for more reddie/losers club content :)

Stan was wrapped in three blankets, a crown of curls rising up beneath the layers of fleece, dark eyes watching the wall intently, like he half expected a hand to shoot out of the crumbling drywall. He sniffled once, nosing further into the warmth. Bill’s hotel mattress squeaked shrilly below him as he settled at the foot of his bed, rubbing the bridge of his nose.

“Are you s-s-sure you’re a-ah-alright?” he asked quietly, hand coming to rest on the inside of Stan’s ankle. “We can call a doctor...if you w-w-want.”

He shook his head firmly, jaw set as he shot him a chastening look that bordered on accusatory, “No doctor, Bill. You promised.”

Bill sighed, they had argued about it in the car for ten minutes

“W-W-Well u you w-wuh-will let me know if anything changes, right?” Bill asked anxiously.

“Yeah, Bill,” Stan said distantly, “I will.”

“I m-m-mean it, Stanley,” he added, wild eyes unmoving on his face, “p-p-promise me— if anything f-f-feels weird or, or—“

“It’s Derry, Bill,” Stan said plaintively, the laugh that followed sounding dragged out, like a dust bunny unearthed by a curious cat’s paw. He looked sidelong at him, head nearly dipping onto Bill’s broad shoulder, “Is there any other way to feel  _but_ weird?”

Bill realized at that moment that Stanley had reconciled the strange yellow fog surrounding Derry and the bruise-like marks it left on all of them that summer. He hadn’t truly come here to comfort Stan, but seeking something of his own. He pushed away that hazy feeling just as he had pushed away painful memories of Georgie; those attic feelings that try to worm their way into your heart when you least expect them. But the feeling was only mitigated by the fixed gaze in Stan’s eyes— imploring and sincere.

“You know w-wuh-what I mean.”

“Yeah,” Stan said soberly, “I do.”

There was quiet for a moment, and then he said, “I just don’t remember you being such a wet, Denbrough.”

Bill barked out a surprised laugh, feeling something roll off his chest— something he’d hardly been aware was there in the first place. He revelled in the smile that had taken over Stan’s serious face, and found himself wanting to live in that moment forever. But feeling the room shift, he knew that wasn’t really why they were there tonight, and so long as they stayed in Derry, that night may never come.

As if sensing this, Stan grew stoic again, a queer tone to his voice as he said, “You wanna know something funny?”

“S-S-Sure,” Bill said, but he wasn’t sure he did.

“My whole life I’ve been afraid,” he said, voice as light and as airy as the slight summer night’s breeze whistling outside the motel’s low windows. “I governed myself by these rules...routines. Thinking if I maintained a certain order, nothing bad could happen. I’ve been ironing my shirts since the second grade, for chrissake, Bill! All my life I’ve been preparing for this grand test, some final way to prove...prove what?” he puttered off nonsensically.

He gaped, arms coming out wide, only to drop back down as he shook his head. He laughed dryly, “But look where that got us, huh? We didn’t know a damned thing.”

“S-S-Stan—“

“I’m done being _afraid,_ Bill,” Stan said, his admission hanging in the air as he looked deep into his eyes. His gaze held a kind of manic glimmer, as if he’d just asked Bill to elope with him in Vegas and not relinquished his greatest childhood fear.

His Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat, and as he looked down, he saw Stan’s hand closing over his own.

“Stan,” he said softly, the hum of the radio seeming impossibly loud against the stillness of the room.

Words ghosted over Stanley’s lips and were pushed aside with ruthless abandon as he instead leaned in, gravitating, almost _falling_ desperately into Bill like a starved man. He ravaged him with his eyes, the heat of his touch radiating up Bill’s forearm as his fingers brushed over the skin. Eyes flaming like coalfire, he melted into him and pressed the softest kiss to Bill’s mouth.  For a moment he sat frozen, arms limp at his sides, knuckles gripping the bedsheets. He heard a soft sound as their lips parted, and that was enough to shock him into kissing back. His hands went up to Stan’s curls and he felt as though he might cry, traitor’s tears pricking at his eyes. But his phone began to buzz against the mattress, and by some instinct, he knew it was Audra.

_God,  Audra._

Bill pulled away with a quiet sound, Stan belatedly opening his eyes as his hands fell back to his sides, like a man just waking and trying to cling to a particularly wonderful dream.

“Stan,” Bill breathed, “we can’t.”

Stan followed his gaze down to the good wedding band slipped past Bill’s second knuckle, winking guiltily in the lamplight.

“Oh,” he said simply, and Bill felt his heart give a dull shudder before snapping in two.

He felt shards of it needle into his ribcage, chest tight as he whispered hoarsely, _“Stan.”_

But he was already at the door. As the hinges creaked shut, Bill sighed into his hands, and as the phone’s ringer droned on, he watched his wife’s face illuminate the phone screen and let the call go to voicemail.

* * *

“Ow, dickhead, watch the needle!”

“Well if you wouldn’t squirm like a little bitch, this would be done a lot faster!”

Just a few doors down from Bill, Eddie and Richie sat in a motel room, a sight unfolding before him that would make his younger self recoil in hot, shivering disgust. Even now, he found himself instinctively reaching for an aspirator that wasn’t there, but the fear was but a low hum in the back of his mind, the night’s stillness dampening the shrill, nauseous panic clawing at his throat.

Eddie frowned down at Richie, crouched on the greying carpet between Eddie’s knees, a sharp sewing needle in hand as he attempted to re-stitch his torn sutures.

“Dick,” he muttered.

In a rare moment of clarity, Richie chose not to respond, tentatively threading the third stitch through his skin. The needle twinkled in the dim lamplight of the motel room. Distantly, a radiator mumbled and sputtered to life.

His mangled skin looked almost green in the garish yellow light emanating from the bedside table. Eddie winced at the small pinprick, thoughts of staph infections and AIDS flooding his mind with a familiar morbid eagerness he hadn’t felt since he was a kid...that worming, throbbing fear tasting of the summer that changed everything...tasting of placebos and the beginnings of feelings he couldn’t really understand— things that would haunt him for years to come, even as he lay next to his wife in bed.  At night, when everyone was asleep...a voice, gravelly and disembodied, beckoning him to _come home._ Sometimes he’d dream of a gloved hand, humid and sickly damp, reaching out of the darkness. On the worst nights, the nights that would leave him shivering upright in bed, trembling like an epileptic and reaching for a cocktail of pills, he would almost reach out and take it.

He’d always wake in time, however, with that peculiar feeling that you get when you dream of falling, only the fear did not abate when he found himself awake in his own damp sheets, but rather leave him gasping for breath, a low, dizzying tremble in his body as he thought of red balloons...millions of them...bright as blood.

He glanced down at his hand, which had begun to twitch and shudder like a shapeless form in bed when plagued with a bad dream— a bright white ring glaring up at him on his finger, the golden band now relocated to his pinky seemingly by its own volition.  Memories of a similar sight intruded his mind like a violent drunk kicking down the rusted hinges of a door. That cheap cereal prize he donned proudly as a kid that summer, the kind that turned your hand green but fascinated you in your youth in the way ugly things often do. He looked at that hand, glaring expectantly, accusingly at him and he wondered with a shudder just how much distance he’d really put between him and his past.

He looked down at Richie, brows furrowed in rare concentration, glasses pressed firmly to the bridge of his nose. If Eddie looked hard enough, he could almost make out the faint outline of those old coke bottle frames he used to wear as a kid...always crooked on one side or taped haphazardly together, yet another victim of Richie’s childhood recklessness and the Bowers’ gang’s ruthless reign of terror over Derry...long before more complex, more real dangers entered their lives.

He could almost  _hear _ Richie’s ‘British Guy’ voice—  _“Well, pip, pip, Dr. K! Seems you’ve got yourself in a bit of a scrap, innit? Having any good chucks, Eds? Huh? Real chuckalicious if you ask me.”_

_Stop that_, he chided his brain.

Like the rotted, maggot-eaten hand of a zombie in those creature-feature films Richie used to drag him to, a garbled, throaty growl clawed it’s way out of his memories.

_ It won’t do you any good to run, Eddie. _

_“No!”_ he yelped, jumping back like he’d been burned.

Richie looked up at him, alarmed, “Jesus! You alright?”

“Yeah,” Eddie said, paralyzed as he stared at his face. 

_I’m scared, Rich, I’m really scared,_ his mind babbled. His inner voice was childish and needy and he never felt smaller, never felt so, so—  _I don’t want to hear it, I don’t want things to change, I don’t want to be scared. I’m scared and you fix it Richie, you always do, and that scares me too, and I really wanna talk about it and it’s killing me not to, but it feels like coughing up maggots and I can’t I can’t—_

Richie’s free hand settled comfortably on Eddie’s knee, squeezing once, and it was enough to break him out of his thoughts. He opened his mouth, wanting to say everything on his mind. But of course, he couldn’t. So instead, he said:

“You better having fucking disinfected that thing.”

“Wha—oh,” Richie looked down at the needle glinting in his palm, “Well, at least  _I _ got my tetanus shot.”

_“Richie!”_ he squeaked.

“Relax, Spaghetti,” he shook his head, “of course I disinfected it.”

Eddie exhaled, wincing as a thin sear of pain radiated down his belly. Richie’s hand flitted to the wound, and despite the nagging chorus of thoughts telling him how unsanitary this whole ordeal was, he found an odd kind of comfort in the gesture, and noticed himself instinctively leaning into the touch, and horrifically—craving _more._

It would be so easy, he thought, just to lean down and come a little closer and—

Richie spoke again and it startled him back to reality as a new stitch was pulled tautly just under his ribs. “You’re usually the expert at this, Dr. K,” he laughed, but the sound was strained and rattled slightly in his throat like he was nervous.

“Yeah, well,” Eddie said, grimly watching his handiwork, “I couldn’t exactly stitch up myself.”

“I guess that’s true.” Another stitch pulled tight, “I guess this is payback for all those times you had to fix me up, huh?”

As another soft laugh was punched out of Richie, Eddie remembered those moments with a fond warmth. At the height of Henry Bowers’ tyranny, Richie became somewhat of a punching bag, sneaking into Eddie’s room nearly twice a week with gashes and scrapes all over his face, sometimes even a black eye.  He’d sit quietly at the edge of his bed, more gentle and silent than Eddie had ever heard him, and the soft buzz of the night would whirr on around them as Eddie healed him the best he could with bandages and peroxide and a few chastening words.

“Funny that every time you get hurt I’m always the one that has to fix you up,” Richie snorted, tending to the small slash marks near the bone of his ribs.

Eddie winced in pain and the hand returned to his leg, warm and comforting and strong. “If I remember correctly, last time you tried to ‘fix me up’ you broke my arm.”

Richie grinned. 

“Maybe I should break yours...so we’re even.”

Richie cackled, the sound as boisterous and obnoxious as Eddie remembered, and even as he shook his head, he found a warm fondness spreading across his chest.

“Eds gets off a good one! Real chuck—“

Eddie’s hand clamped over Richie’s mouth, pinning him with a death stare, “Don’t you dare say it.”

They looked at each other, looking like two cowboys showing down in a western, like a tumbleweed, a rogue dust bunny rolled across the floor.

His nose tingled mercilessly and he twitched, “Don’t you dare—“

A giant sneeze exploded out of him, jerking his arm away from Richie’s mouth to cover his own, and it was at that moment that Richie wriggled free, laughing into the quiet and stating, “Real  _chuckalicious__!_”

Eddie groaned into his hands, peeking through his fingers, “You’re insufferable.”

“You love it,” Richie snorted.

“Hmph,” Eddie said, righting himself and sitting primly on the mattress, “I tolerate it.”

Richie grinned up at him, “Better than anyone else.”

Eddie bit his lip, watching the smile cross his red lips, cheeks flushed with laughter, “Yeah, yeah. Check if I blew any of my stitches out.”

He got an exaggerated sigh in return, “No love at all for Richie Tozier. You’re killing me, Eds!”

His hand hovered over Richie’s head for a moment, and in his unguarded state, he almost let it settle in the black curls, “Don’t call me Eds.”

Richie chuckled quietly and they sat in silence for the next few minutes, only speaking when Richie tied off the next set of stitches, snipping the thread with a tiny pair of scissors dwarfed in his large hands.

“Stan would be a lot better at this than me,” he stated, sitting back on his heels and peering up at Eddie.

He laughed, surprising himself, “Yeah, too bad I’m stuck with you, huh?”

They stared at each other for a moment, faces still, before dissolving into laughter, Eddie groaning, hands hovering over the gnarly looking sutures.

“Stan,” he said suddenly, and with that one simple word, the room grew quiet, an uneasy tension filling the air.

“Stan,” Richie echoed, looking troubled.

“Think he’ll—“

“Yeah,” Richie said quickly, brows furrowed, “he has to.”

“Where do you think he’s gonna go?” Eddie said quietly, “I mean...after this is all done...all of us.”

They looked at each other, the question unsaid and hanging between them in the air:

_ Are we just going to forget again? _

“Well,” Richie sighed, sitting back on his heels, “Stan will probably go back to his wife, right? I mean, he has to, right?”

“She thinks he’s dead,” Eddie murmured, “he can’t go back, Rich. It wouldn’t be right—“

“If you loved someone, and I mean really loved someone,” Richie said, suddenly seeming wrought with emotion, face contorted with some kind of torture Eddie couldn’t quite interpret, “wouldn’t you want them to come home?”

He almost whispered the next part, speaking less to Eddie now seemingly and more to himself, “Even if it didn’t make sense and it was wrong and unnatural and—  _wouldn’t you want them to come home?_”

Eddie swallowed thickly. He thought of Myra and found the ring slipped over the second knuckle of his fourth finger once again.

Richie shook his head, laughing dryly, “God, Eds, I don’t know. This is fucked up. I mean...Stan almost died! God, Eddie—fuck! I was a fucking mess, you know that? Look—Eddie, if...Stan dies again—“

Richie let out a sound halfway between a scream and a garbled sob, muffled by his palms. Eddie’s eyes were wide as he watched him knelt between his knees. His hand hovered awkwardly above him before settling on his shoulder. He suddenly felt like Richie wasn’t speaking the entire truth.

“God, Eddie,” he said plainly, “God...”

A tense but agreeable silence fell over them, and down the hall, a bed creaked, footsteps following down the carpeted corridors. Distantly, a door slammed shut.

“What about you?” Eddie said abruptly.

Richie looked up from his hands, hair mussed up, “Huh?”

Eddie felt that familiar nervousness branding him like a hot poker, “After this is all over...where are you going?”

Richie looked caught off-guard, like he never considered that there would be life after Derry. Eddie could understand that, but the sentiment did nothing to placate the squirming fear tugging at his stomach.

“God, Eds, I don’t know...” he looked up nervously, wringing his hands, “What about you?”

Eddie didn’t respond, mouth apparently operating by it’s own volition, blurting out, “Do you ever feel like you’re reliving your past?”

Richie raised an eyebrow, but he could see the recognition cross his face in that same dark cloud that it passed over every Loser after that summer.

“Like...we killed It...great, and we went back to our normal lives, and everything was fine, right?” Eddie twisted the ring mindlessly up and over his knuckle. Richie’s eyes followed the movement like a hawk. Eddie’s voice brought them back up to his eye.

“But do you ever feel like...like this whole time, we were all just waiting to go back?”

Richie looked at him with a kind of troubled understanding, “Like...”

“Like even though we moved on...we never really left Derry...did we?”

Richie’s hands fiddled with a chain around his neck, something Eddie had failed to notice until now, and as he followed the rusted chainlink, he found himself staring at the bronzed cover of his dad’s old compass.

“You kept it...” Eddie whispered.

Richie’s eyes followed his down to the pendant, looking up, his glasses askew, and in that moment, it was like looking into a time machine, the figure crouched in front of him no longer Richie Tozier: famous comedian, but Richie ‘Trashmouth’ Tozier: his best friend, and the damned best person Eddie’s ever known.

“What?” Richie said dumbly.

Eddie hardly heard him, frozen in place, feeling some ancient tightly wound coil inside of him unroll for the first time in his life. Eddie looked into Richie’s eyes and knew he saw it too.

_ “ Richie.” _

Eddie tugged him up, pulling him into a bone-crushing hug. Richie froze for a second before reciprocating, his hands fisting into the back of Eddie’s shirt, burying his face in the crook of his neck.

“Please don’t leave, Eddie,” Richie said against his skin, sounding remarkably like his younger self. He held him impossibly tighter and Eddie suspected he wasn’t just talking about the motel room.

“Okay,” Eddie breathed.

He let Richie embrace him, even as the backs of their knees hit the mattress, even as they fell onto it with their arms still wound around each other, even as he held Eddie’s trembling body to his chest like he had sometimes when they were kids.  Within minutes, he felt Richie fall asleep, his heartbeat a steady thud against his backbone, his breath a soft warmth against his neck. He looked back at him and carefully took the glasses of his face, laying them folded on the bedside table. Nobody saw him slip his ring past his knuckle or drop it onto the floor below. 

Likewise, nobody saw him turn off the lamp and let himself be pulled closer into Richie, his guilt-ridden face a phantom in the motel as night encroached upon them. Eddie stirred, and then fell into a dreamless sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys! God, time goes by so fast, I check my fic from time to time and see that a whole month has passed since the last chapter- especially since I was releasing 1-2 chapters a DAY during the summer. It is a little harder to keep up with the posting schedule with school and all and since we're nearing the end of the book, I want the ending to be super satisfying so that everyone who's been supporting this story since the beginning feels rewarded and happy. Thoughts on the chapter? Let me know down below. And if you've been reading this since the beginning, tell me in the comments section! I'm kinda curious to see who's been keeping up with the story.
> 
> And as always, you can follow me on tumblr @sweetiebrak or on tiktok with the same username!
> 
> And as always, comments and feedback are always appreciated, they really encourage me to write and let me know if you guys are enjoying the story. So, if you’re enjoying it, please feel free to let me know and talk with me about the story! I love interacting with you guys, and more feedback helps me get chapters out to you faster.
> 
> <3


	34. Chapter Thirty Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi guys! sorry for the delay in updates, i actually wrote an entire chapter basically before realizing that i had to write a different chapter before it, so i had to write this one too, haha! 
> 
> the good news is that the next update will come incredibly soon and in the meantime, i hope you enjoy this extra long (7k) chapter! :)

_The air was stuffy and humid— a feverish sheen further paling the faces of the Losers Club, already ghostlike in the unnerving dim green light emanating from the walls around them, moss growing between the spider-web cracks in the rot-eaten stone._

Nausea tugged at the pit of Richie’s stomach with a kind of sick dedication that seemed to draw bile bubbling up into his throat. He swallowed it listlessly, the bitter taste offensive to his parched mouth. He fought the urge to dry-retch in a dizzy, far-fetched fear that amongst the chunks of whatever food he managed to wolf down that day, his own organs might come tumbling out his mouth.  A glutinous liquid coated his hands—blood or whatever was wound tightly into It’s heart splattered between his fingers, inching down underneath his fingernails and caked across his palms, staining the skin a bright, dangerous red. He let out a strangled moan, squeezing his eyes shut until he felt the pinpricks of tears rolling into their ducts.

_ We’re ready, Richie! Ready to make you cry like a little baby! _

Strangely enough, his internal monologue seemed eerily similar to Patrick Hockstetter in its tone and cadence, that slinking, wet hot horror curling around his ear like a writhing slug. He could almost feel the moist, rotten breath fan across his neck, and he shivered like an epileptic.

_ “Look at the little fag! Huh, aint that right gay boy? Shoulda killed your little fairy friend when I had the chance, but I guess someone beat me to it.” _

For a moment, Richie could almost see Patrick’s face behind his closed eyes, those protruding canines, the glint of metal snaring his molars as he laughed, those cavity-eaten teeth looking like a stake you’d drive into a vampire’s heart. Whatever monumental terror Patrick Hockstetter provoked in his short lifetime seemingly only grew in death; his once thin face now bloated and puffy like a water balloon, broken blood vessels painting his eyes a muted red— those spit-shined marbles rolling around in their sockets with no real direction as gashes poured out from either side of his temples like someone had taken a bat to his mug. Spit dribbled out of his mouth— lips painted red and appearing nearly torn out of his cratered cheeks, a hoarse laugh rattling in his crushed windpipes as he lingered in Richie’s mind.

“Rich!” someone shouted, shaking his arm roughly and jostling him out of his daydream.

Only it felt less like a daydream than a premonition of sorts— or the unearthing of a certain kind of horrific truth he’d perhaps known since the first moment he stepped foot into the Neibolt house and the floors had wailed like a thousand doomed children beneath his feet.

“Richie, come on, man,” Bill urged him, and if Richie had been looking more closely, he might have noticed fear flicker across his wide eyes, or the look of determination in the grit of his jaw, his expression cold but not quite unkindly— like a doctor about to say:

_call it._

But Richie hadn’t been looking at Bill, still blinking those terrors from the corner of his eyes as he stumbled over to that jagged rock protruding from the ground, his heart a faltering metronome in his chest.

“C’mon,” he heard again— insistent this time, like glass dissolving into tinny shrieks before finally succumbing to the weight of it all. “W-Wuh-We g-g-got to go f-fuh-find Eh-Eh-“

_ “ Eddie _ _,”_ Richie whispered, the name alone enough to draw him back to reality, ignoring the visceral ache and tear in his legs as he hauled himself over that rocky terrain with a single thought taking a talismanic path in his mind:

_ EddieEddieEddieEddieEddieEddie. _

Although they were now far from the deep pit of sewage they had trudged through hours ago to get to where they were, it was as though he was running through water, the wormy, meaty hands of his childhood monsters clawing relentlessly at his ankles.

_No__,_ Richie thought determinedly, _ I will not be a prisoner to my past. Not again._

What was it that Tom Petty said? 

_ You can stand me up at that gates of Hell, but I won’t back down. No, I’ll stand my ground, won’t be turned around, and I’ll keep this world from dragging me down. _

If he hadn’t been so preoccupied by these thoughts running in manic disarray through his brain, he might have noticed the crowd gathering around Eddie’s body, might have noticed his sprawled out form like a ragdoll against the concrete, might have noticed the deep crimson blood already soaked through the front of Bill’s shirt.

Richie stumbled drunkly over to Eddie’s body, the crowd dispersing as he shoved his way through, like Moses parting the water. 

“Eds, Eddie!” Richie grinned, paying no mind to his hand pressed desperately to his side, or the way Richie’s shirt squelched, soaked with blood as Eddie held it to his fatal wounds. All Richie knew was that Eddie was here and Eddie was in front of him and him and even in his dying, he looked every bit the kid Richie fell in love with all those years ago. Even as green lights danced sickeningly across his face, even as it twisted and contorted in silent pain.

“We did it, okay?” he babbled, shaking his arm lying limply across his lap, “We did it, and, and—“

“Richie,” Eddie began to say, something like a laugh rumbling in his chest as his eyelids fluttered, grappling to stay awake. That was about all he could manage though, because then a thick black bubble of blood was erupting out of his mouth, dripping down his neck like the darkness that threatened to consume them all as they lay stagnant in the dwindling light of the sewers.

His eyes were pained as he drew them down to Eddie’s lap, a horrific massacre-scene of jagged lacerations and scar tissue that would never fully form.

Richie felt himself go faint, a shrill ringing in his ears as the world around him swam, just like his legs had moments ago. 

_Don’t stop, don’t stop,_ Richie’s brain screamed at him,  _don’t stop because that’s how they get you, when you stop, and then you’re alone and God, please don’t let me be alone—_

_“Oh Jesus,_ that’s a lot of blood,” he moaned.

Eddie winced, a strange gurgling sound bubbling up from his throat. His eyes glimmered in the faint like and god, didn’t his tears look like they were made of blood too?

Richie’s hand dug in painfully to the bone of Eddie’s shoulder, the walls watching them like a vulture circling its prey. His own eyes were wide and frantic as Eddie’s own began to fall shut.

“Hey...hey, no, _no!_ Don’t do that, buddy, don’t close your eyes, okay? Like that time in fifth grade when I got a concussion and I went to lie down and you slapped me. Remember that? Huh, Eds? Just gotta— just gotta stay awake and everything will be okay, right? And we’ll be okay, we _will_, and—“

Eddie lay unresponsive beneath him and Richie fought the urge to throw up his writhing, hot lump of a heart into his lap as it shattered into pieces, piercing his lungs.

“You jackass, keep your eyes on me, Eds, c’mon!”

His voice was reduced to a hoarse scream at that point, his throat making an odd tea-kettle sound not unlike what Eddie used to sound like in one of his asthma attack.

_Somebody turn Eddie off! He’s reached the boil!_ Isn’t that what he used to say? 

He had said that, had said many things. But none of them seemed as important as what he had to say now.

“Eddie, please,” he choked out.

Right there in that moment, kneeled over Eddie’s quivering body, Richie looked an awful lot like Bill Denbrough that balmy summer day in the Barrens; the day they met Ben.

_ "I wonder if yuh-yuh-you could help m-m-me. H-His ah-ah-ah-aspirator is eh-hempty. I think he m-might be d-d-d—" _

—-dying!  You’re not dying on me, Eddie, stop _fucking around! Stop—“_ he sobbed into the back of his hand, “you just_ HAD_ to be the hero, huh? You just had to make that stupid dumbass _sacrifice!”_

Hands groping at his chest, pulling, tugging,  dragging him away. 

_“No!”_ he screamed into the darkness, “What the _fuck_ is wrong with you? We can’t leave him, we can’t—“

And as the sewers caved in, Richie committed to memory the sight of Eddie’s unmoving body buried under Derry’s rubble as he bled out endlessly into the earth.

* * *

  
Eddie stumbled out of room, the rusty hinges courteously silent as he moved out into the hallway, blinking sleep that begrudgingly came, out of his eyes. 

He made it two steps before smacking right into Richie. He yelped, seemingly startling the both of them, which was dumb because  Richie was the one outside his door. Wait— what the _fuck._ Richie was  _outside_ his door. 

Eddie looked up at him accusingly, “Why the fuck were you standing outside my door?”

“Huh?” 

“You’re crouched outside my door at the ass-crack of dawn like some kind of cave creature—oof!”

Richie tackled him in a bone-crushing hug, Eddie yelping, “Richie! My stitches!”

“Sorry, right,” he muttered, loosening his grip but not letting go. It was undeniably a weird sight— Richie hunched over Eddie’s body like a cripple, his glasses digging into the side of Eddie’s neck as he buried his face there.  Eddie stood frozen in shock, shooting a confused glance over Richie’s shoulder at the ugly motel wallpaper, as if it had the faintest clue what was going on.

“You’re alive,” Richie breathed, the words ghosting over his neck and sending a shiver down the back of his spine. 

“Uh, yeah? Is there a reason you’re bombarding me at 5 am or did you just come to cuddle?” Eddie snarked into his shoulder, pushing him away.

“Oh yeah, Eds, I was thinking we could have a girl’s night, get Bev to make us face-masks and mimosas while we gossip about boys.”

“How are you this annoying this early in the morning?”

“It’s a gift,” Richie said, and then looked pryingly at Eddie, “Nightmares?”

Eddie shifted his weight uneasily, “Don’t wanna talk about it.”

Richie sighed, rubbing a hand across the five-o-clock shadow dusting his face, “Yeah, me neither.”

But he had been right— nightmares had crept in like a thief in the night, and Eddie had awoken in a full body shudder with an oddly visceral need for a cigarette.  But he wasn’t going to say that now, not while Richie was looking at him with that forlorn look, like he was looking into the eyes of a ghost. Not while panic still clawed at his dry, thick throat.

_I don’t want to do anything, _ Stan’s young, plaintive voice echoed in his mind,  _I want to forget about it. That’s all I want to do._

So when Richie asked, “Wanna get drunk?” Eddie only nodded and let himself be lead outside, into the Barrens and far away from that cold, dark sewer that even in his waking, called to him.

* * *

The Barrens, in all honesty, didn’t look that different from how Eddie remembered them. Not that he’d thought of them all that much in the past twenty-seven years, but looking around at the overgrown brush, grass the colour of sand, cattails swimming endlessly as a breeze rippled through the fields, he found himself wondering how it was even possible to forget such a thing.

Then again, he had just as easily forgotten his friends, the terrors that transpired over the summer of 1989, and in some ways: himself. 

Now it had all come rushing back like a rusty stormdrain coughing up floodwater, and Eddie was dizzy with each cresting memory.

He shuddered and took a long swig of beer, wondering if Richie had purposely chosen the preferred brand of their adolescence.

“Uck,” Eddie recoiled, shaking his head as if it would somehow diminish the bitter taste filling his mouth. “God, this stuff is just as gross as I remember.”

“Can’t be worse than your prune juice.”

Eddie let out a long, suffering sigh, “For the last time, Rich, it’s very healthy for you unlike this—“

“It’s Watney’s, Eds, not snake venom.”

Eddie frowned, “It might as well be. You know this was rated one of the worst beers in the world?”

Richie shrugged, his lips wrapping around the thin neck of the bottle, uncaring as the breeze ruffled his hair, “Yeah, tasted pretty damn good back then, though.”

Eddie opened his mouth to argue, but closed it just as fast. He was right— something about those long summer days made even the shittiest of beers taste unbelievably good, which was awful lucky for the Losers Club, seeing as shitty beer was really all they could afford— sun-warmed and nearly bleaching their insides from the stark bitterness. 

Of course, they could probably buy out an entire liquor store by themselves now for crying out loud, but it would never compare to those hot, endless afternoons down in the Barrens, mere nickles between them as the Kenduskeag churned merrily on, the beginnings of adulthood a long dream away and the natural high of summer burning through them like a brushfire.  It was perhaps the part of his childhood Eddie remembered most, looking back. He’d always associated that strangling grip of adolescence with a fear so visceral it may have haunted him his whole damn life, but didn’t this, at the end of things, occupy more space in his heart than the hurt? 

Those dragging August days with his head in Richie’s lap and his friends mere fingertips away, woozy on cheap beer and stale cigarettes as smoke pirouetted towards the burning sun...

“I think anything could have been good back then,” Eddie almost whispered, paying no mind to the curious look that Richie trained on the side of his face. “Even though that was the scariest goddamn summer of my life, nothing ever seemed to compare to it.”

He looked around at the dry wasteland, a place only a child’s naive, sometimes reckless heart could endear, and he felt fear. But above all, he felt love.

“I spent the happiest days of my childhood down there in that mess,” he said with a shiver, “and honestly, Rich, I think that’s what scares me the most.”

They were loose and fuzzy already, the slow warmth of alcohol creeping up their necks and the taut skin of their cheeks in careless flourishes of pink. They couldn’t have been drunk quite yet, Eddie knew—bitter as it was, the beer wasn’t all that strong, and in the twenty-seven years between them, it appeared that he and Richie Tozier had learned to hold their alcohol quite well.  But still, they drifted closer together like shadows intertwining on a hot-top road in the summer sun, and blamed it on the drink. It was easier, and Eddie knew, deep down, less terrifying to chalk it up to drunkenness than the alternate, which was, at the moment, nothing more than a fuzzy blur of warmth quickly becoming horrifically tangible as Richie’s fingers brushed over his own.

If Eddie leaned over half an inch, his head would be nestled against the side of Richie’s neck, and he nearly trembled at the idea, that ugly fear gnawing at the pit of his gut as his breath evaded him like a dandelion in the wind.

Richie didn’t answer him. There was nothing to answer  to—  they were speaking out to the deserted Barrens, and in some way, Eddie felt, to their past selves. And Richie’s hand was dwarfing his own and Eddie couldn’t remember feeling so scared in his entire life.

“Kind of crazy, isn’t it?” Richie said suddenly, taking a final sip of beer before tossing the crumpled tin can into the bushes.

Eddie wrinkled his nose instinctually, chastening words forming on the tip of his tongue in a kind of belligerent tone he hadn’t used in the better half of thirty years, and_ certainly_ not to Myra.

_Jesus,_ he thought, nerves afire under his skin, the straw-like grass scratching at his palms,  _have I even changed at all?_

“Kinda crazy...” Richie repeated to himself, now chewing absentmindedly on a piece of straw, “how we went our whole lives until now living like strangers—

_You still feel like a stranger to me,_ Eddie thought.

— and I swear, Eddie, we were like family, all of us—"

_ Even to me, Rich. Lately I feel like I’m a stranger to myself. _

— and in all those years, until now, we’ve never seen each other once.”

“Yes we have,” Eddie nearly whispered, the sound almost punched out of him, and his one hand clambered for his aspirator only to find it missing from the shallow pockets of his jeans. 

God- _jeans,_ that was new. _Remember those tiny red shorts you used to wear that summer? Hell, they were shorter than Beverly’s, even, and remember what Henry Bowers used to say—_

Richie looking so intently into his eyes, “What do you mean, Eds?”

_ — fag _

“Three years ago,” Eddie choked out, “we met, but we didn’t know it at the time.”

_ —girly boy _

“Eds, wha—“

_— gon’ beat that weasley mug in, candy-ass, gon’ make you bleed, Kaspbrak_

“Three years ago, the flight to Illinois from New York. We had a layover in some nowhere town in Iowa because of turbulence and you stumbled into my seat, drunk as a skunk, and I said—“

* * *

_“That’s my seat.”_

Eddie said shortly, frowning almost murderously at the disheveled, clearly drunk man sprawled across the hideous blue fabric of the chair like a coffee stain on a white shirt.

“I don’t see your name on it.”

Eddie could hardly believe the audacity of this man, and after an unplanned three-hour layover on what was supposed to be a two-hour flight, he had been left scrambling to reschedule an important meeting, possibly losing a major client and only driving his overbearing nut of a wife further into blubbering hysterics— he really did not need this right now.

“It’s on my _receipt,_ you asshole! Here, look—“

“Got a seat for ya right here,” the man winked, and to Eddie’s horror, patted his jean-clad thigh.

“What?!” Eddie said shrilly, eyes wide as saucers and drawn down with embarrassment as people began to stare.

“Relax, _'keed,_ I’m just kidding. Out of the goodness of my heart, I’ll let you have the aisle seat.”

“Goodness of your heart?!” Eddie squawked, “It was my seat to begin with!”

The man just hummed and shifted over the to the further seat, where a porthole window was dug modestly into the wall of the craft. Eddie huffed a sigh and sat down, pinching the bridge of his nose and taking in a sharp, ragged breath.  Pills rolled enticingly in his carry-on and without thinking, he popped a few into the palm of his hand, knocking it back with the kind of effortlessness that comes from swallowing half a pharmacy a day. The man next to him squinted like this sight was particularly rousing, hand scratching curiously at the stubble on his face.

“What’s that?”

“Dramamine,” Eddie said immediately, wincing as the pills slid dryly down his throat, “Ativan. Wait, why am I telling you this? Didn’t anyone ever tell you to mind your business?”

“Dunno, tuts,” the man shrugged, broad shoulders almost comically cramped in the close quarters, leather jacket swishing against the shell of the seat. “And yeah, it’s like music to my ears— the friends I used to hang out with, real rag-tag group of outcasts, you know—“ 

The man paused, almost thoughtfully, and then said, furrowing his brows, _“_ _ Losers, _ _”_ his face twisted in concentration for a moment and went slack-jawed once again, like a recently-awoken man trying to remember a dream before surrendering it to that open vat of forgetfulness that sits inside everyone somewhere between the brain and the heart.

He shook his head, “Anyway— these kids, they used to call me—“

_ “ Trashmouth _ _,”_ Eddie said suddenly, the words seemingly not of his own organic thoughts, but someone else’s altogether. Some deeply-rooted instinct so visceral he had forgotten it even existed at all.

He looked at him scrutinizingly, faint wrinkles etching into his forehead like lines drawn haphazardly into the dirt.

“...Yeah, how’d you know that?”

Eddie faltered, brows knitting across his own face, “I...don’t know actually.”

The man’s face looked strikingly familiar all of a sudden, his black rimmed glasses now appearing almost comically large and boisterous, even though Eddie could have sworn they were rather modern just a moment ago. He looked younger— softer somehow, and if Eddie really thought about it, he almost looked like Buddy Holly.

“Do I know y—“

At that moment, the plane jerked sharply to the left, a loud beep announcing the seatbelt advisory that flashed in bright red lights across the small screen nestled on the cabin wall. Startled murmurs echoed throughout the plane and puttered out just as quickly as a stewardess began to make an announcement.

“Jesus,  more turbulence?” Eddie moaned into his hand, holding his head to quell the sudden onslaught of dizziness crashing over him. 

Oddly enough, he felt as though the jerking rumble of the plane didn’t entirely account for his light-headedness, and he gripped the plastic armrest tight.

“You a nervous flyer?” The man beside him asked.

The voice was a grating tire-shriek in Eddie’s panicked mind and he snapped, “I took five pills before we so much as got off the ground, what do you think?”

The man seemed unfazed by his tectchiness, almost as though he’d dealt with it before and understood the bird-like workings of Eddie’s mind he masqueraded behind a generally complacent nature.

“Well, you got nothing to worry about,” he assured him, voice sounding oddly sincere for the repertoire of traits Eddie had assigned to him during the flight thus far.  He shook his head as the stewardess began to demonstrate how to pull an oxygen mask over your face in case of an emergency. He leaned over the shared armrest into Eddie’s space, like he was sharing a secret:

“I hate these safety tutorials. Like anyone’s going to remember it if we land in trouble.”

“They’re  _important__,_” Eddie insisted, straining to hear the rest of the instructions over the man’s sharp breath of laughter fanning over his neck.

“Best case scenario we crash into a tree and the whole fuselage explodes like a firecracker on the Fourth of July...haven’t you ever watched  _Lost?”_

“Okay, you’re  _not_ helping!” Eddie hissed, grappling for his aspirator and taking a long suck of it, the familiar medicinal taste flooding his mouth.

_ Battery acid _ _,_ he thought abruptly— a thought he’d never dreamt up as long as he could remember using the old thing—  _ it tastes like battery acid ._

The man beside him looked mildly concerned at the action, that daze still present on his face, as though he was scrupulously trying to piece together an old memory.

_ God, there must be some kind of gas leak in the plane, this is unjustly bizarre _ _,_ Eddie’s mind moaned.

Like some kind of increasingly strange dark horse, the guy beside him only offered a small plastic sachet, “Want my peanuts?”

“What? No!” Eddie said almost hysterically, fumbling for his inhaler again and wheezing raggedly into it, “If I eat a nut I could realistically die!”

“More for me then!”

“No! We are sitting elbow-to-elbow on a flying metal sarcophagus, do you want me to die?”

“I’m pretty sure that’s not how that works,” he frowned, looking amused.

“What are you, some kind of doctor?” Eddie breathed as the plans stabilized.

“No, just a concerned citizen.”

Eddie almost laughed at that, and maybe he would have if he didn’t feel like he was breathing out of a pin-hole as it was, “You look like you’ve never been concerned a day in your life.”

“And you look like your idea of a good time is Scrabble and a glass of red wine on a Sunday night. Two can play at this game.”

The man, Eddie remarked, was remarkably coherent for a drunk, and even witty, though he’d never dare to mention the latter out of concern for this man’s already over-inflated ego and Eddie’s own sanity.  So instead he sniffed, and there was a hearty two minutes of silence before the man decided he was once again bored by stale air and fluorescent lights of the plane.

“You headed on vacation or a business trip?” 

Eddie snorted, “Who the hell goes to Illinois for pleasure?”

The man shrugged, “Cows?”

Eddie hardly contained a surprised laugh, “I’m here for business. I work for a limousine company...I don’t travel much.”

The man raised an eyebrow.

“My wife...” Eddie said uncomfortably, trailing off. He felt no need to elaborate, and clearly his loud-mouth neighbour shared the sentiment, because he didn’t question any further.

“I travel a lot,” he said thoughtfully, swiping the back of his hand absentmindedly over his lip, “I’m a stand-up comedian. I’m from Cali, but lately it feels like I’ve been living out of my suitcase. Hell, that’s exactly what I’ve been doing, and let me tell you, you don’t get lays looking like this.”

“I’m sorry, you said you were a stand-up comedian?” Eddie snorted, “I don’t buy it.”

He grinned, “You wound me,” he said, but his tickled expression didn’t do much to sell the act.

The plane shuddered violently and Eddie gasped, clamping his hand down onto the armrest where the man’s arm just so happened to be resting, their fingers briefly intertwining. Eddie flushed, but the man just smiled.  He retracted his hand slowly, like someone backing away from a rabid crocodile and trying to escapewith their arm still attached.

“I never got your name,” the man prodded, looking like the cat who got the canary, as Eddie’s mother might have once said.

“And you never will,” Eddie said breezily, still processing where the man’s fingertips had brushed against his own seconds before, branding him with a tingly heat that seemed to migrate up his forearm and settle somewhere in the pit of his gut.

The man let out a barking, obnoxious laugh, but it was oddly endearing in a way, he held out his hand to shake, and Eddie couldn’t help but notice the lack of a ring on his finger.

“Richie. Richie Tozier.”

Reluctantly, he had shaken his hand, swallowing thickly, Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat, “Eddie. Eddie Kaspbrak.”

They looked at each other a long moment, and then settled back into their own seats.

“Well, Eds, you just keep on truckin’. This turbulence can’t last forever.”

Eddie felt like they suddenly weren’t talking about the flight anymore, but shook his head anyway, “Don’t call me Eds.”

The man just grinned, and an hour later when Eddie stepped off the platform and was greeted by a taxi and ten missed calls from Myra, he couldn’t help but wonder where he had heard a name like that before.

* * *

“God, Rich, how could we just forget all that?” Eddie shuddered, “Fuck, give me a cigarette.”

Richie was aghast, “What?”

“A cigarette, Richie, I know you have them, just...fuck, give it to me.”

Like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar, Richie passed him a cigarette and his lighter.

Richie sat remarkably quiet amongst the grasses, and there in the dim beginnings of sunlight with the wind ruffling through his hair as smoke curled its way through the Barrens, Eddie thought he looked almost beautiful.

“I never forgot,” he said softly, looking out towards the Kenduskeag. “Even when I moved away, I don’t think I forgot. Not really,” he looked over at Eddie, “the mind may forget, but I’m starting to think that the heart never does. I saw those shadowy nightmares of my past follow me everywhere. Even if I couldn’t remember why it scared me so bad, the fear never changed.”

He looked away again, “And even when I couldn’t quite remember why, Eds,” he said quietly, “I never stopped seeing you.”

Eddie’s heart felt like it was his— and not Pennywise’s, that had been squeezed until it burst. It ached pleaded and Eddie had never  wanted something so much, so hard in his entire life.

“We all forgot, Richie, don’t be ridiculous,” he said angrily, feeling that writhing, wanting heart drop to his feet, “and once we all leave, we’re gonna forget all over again.”

Even in his aching, Richie looked at him with more conviction, with more love than Eddie was truly deserving of. But it had always been that way, hadn’t it?

_ Girly boy. _

“If we have to forget,” Richie said, sounding betrayed, “why not do something worth remembering, so that if we ever meet again three years or three decades from now, I don’t have to look at you and remember the way you left.”

Eddie’s breath went thin and reedy in his throat and he coughed out a white plume of smoke. Richie’s hand immediately settled on his back and before Eddie knew what was happening, an aspirator was being shoved into his mouth as Richie pressed down and Eddie’s breath evaded him for an entirely different reason.

“You...You—“

“Yeah,” Richie said, clearing his throat sheepishly, “guess I did. Still taste like battery acid, Eds?”

“Yeah,” he said breathlessly, “God, Richie, what are we doing?”

Richie laughed softly, but it sounded strained, like it caught in his throat on the way out, “Making the most of a fucked up situation?”

Eddie followed suit, corners of his lips twitching stubbornly up as he felt the weight of Richie’s flat palm against his back, his old aspirator clutched between his trembling fingers.

“We always were good at that,” he said, snuffing out the cigarette with his shoe. He paused, looking over the horizon where orange was beginning to line the plains overarching the Kenduskeag, “We were good.”

“Still are,” Richie turned to him, “things change... people change, but what we have— what  all of us have with each other, Eds...that never does.”

Eddie leaned forward into his space, heart pounding so bruisingly fast against his ribs that it nearly sent a splinter into his aching lungs. His heartbeat drowned out the rest of his senses, blood roaring thunderously in his ears, the world a yellow haze around him. He barely felt the brambles nip at his ankles or the bale-like grass scratch at his knees.  Sheer awe engulfed Eddie and reduced him to a vessel only capable of leaning further into Richie’s space and spurring on a manic, euphoric train of thought destined to crash into the rubble. And the tragedy, Eddie thinks, would be funny too.

_ Crash the whole plane into a goddamn tree, I couldn't give a frank fuck! _

Like a joke that strikes you as deliciously funny and knocks that foreign bone inside you into place, Eddie was helpless to stop that pure, unadulterated sense of wanting overriding all logic that had managed to implant itself into his mind in his forty years of living. Maybe some things aren’t meant to be understood, Eddie thought, maybe some things you’re just meant to  feel and make peace with, and hope to God they aren’t as fleeting as your own frail life.

“And if it does?” Eddie asked, voice no louder than the warm summer breeze ricocheting down the fields.

“Beep-beep, Eds.”

Eddie shook his head softly, “Don’t call me that, you know I—“

“—Hate it, I know, E—“

And then they were kissing and Eddie knew no more. His hands grazed Richie’s cheeks, palms tingling where his five-o-clock shadow brushed his skin.

His wandering hands mapped out the line of Richie’s neck and the dimple between his heaving chest before settling at the nape of his neck, where he could feel his warm pulse battering wildly beneath his skin.  Eddie’s was taut and shivery along his arms, along his back, like ozone leaking into the atmosphere—that ache that settles in your knees right before it rains and you can feel the electricity seize the sky in its unfaltering grip.  He was high off that warmth, the feeling that he was not only being kissed back, but rather eaten alive. Richie’s heart raced against his chest, but Eddie’s own was lying on the floor three feet away, along with his inhibitions. He was flying— free as a bird, as weightless and as brave as Bill Denbrough, who raced to beat the Devil during those hot afternoons the summer of 1989.

His past was a faint glimmer in his peripheral, like the point of a knife winking under lamplight. All he had to do was close his eyes and forget. But forgetting was so very hard when you wanted it most.

Richie’s hands snared the fabric of his sweater and pulled him closer, Eddie sprawled atop Richie as they sunk into the ground like jilted daisies, the bumpy dirt ground digging into their spines and elbows as they rolled across the grass, a flurry of hands and mingled breath. Richie’s fingertips traced over his ribcage as his shirt rode up, and Eddie jerked as if he’d been electrocuted. In a way, it felt like he had, wide-eyed and stiff, heart coming to a stand-still in his chest. But  _God__,_ did it ever feel good. Better than those quiet nights with Myra as he lay warm and safe in his bed, far away from the horrors of his childhood he had worked so hard to forget. Infinitely better. 

_How can anything ever live up to this?_ Eddie thought dizzily as Richie kissed him deeply, hands spanning across his back,  _nothing’s as good as this, nothing._

The world seemed to fall away around them, and what a relief it was, Eddie thought, to see life come crashing down around you when you were so used to it coming crashing down  onto you.

He breathed Richie in, and with a final brush of their lips, he pulled away.

Richie’s lips were red and bruised, eyes dark and dangerous— hair asoft halo around his head, trampled weeds skimming his cheeks uncaringly. Eddie suspected he didn’t look all that different from Richie, didn’t look all that different from the trampled flowers strewn across the Barrens.

All Eddie wanted to do was sink into the ground.

It would have been easier if the kiss felt like fireworks exploding over a grey horizon on the Fourth of July, the smell of gunpowder and cocaine highs. Would have been easier if it announced itself with a distinct tug in his loins as it had the night of his and Myra’s wedding when she was a relatively svelte two-hundred pounds and Derry wasno more than a fever dream wished away by whiskey on some three-AM nights.  But it didn’t. The feeling was undemanding, but didn’t go unnoticed, existing in dilated pupils and that magnetizing need to touch Richie, to hold onto him for dear life and never let go. 

And maybe that’s what should have terrified him the most— that this was no mistake—the feeling that this was a given, that it was always meant to happen and that everything in Eddie’s life before it had just been slowly leading up to this.  It was the difference between a volcano and a cathedral, and Eddie was horrified to realize that all this time, he had been adding bricks by some subliminal intuition, just as he had known that the Losers Club was meant to be together that summer, he had known, deep down, that he and Richie...

A shrill whistle cut through the thick silence of the air, derailing Eddie’s jumbled train of thought as he and Richie jerked their gaze towards the sound. They met eyes for a moment, and Richie’s mouth opened and closed soundlessly before Eddie rolled off of him, following the bright sound, squinting as sunlight bored down into his eyes.

“Eds, wait!” Richie scrambled to his feet, nearly tripping over a knot of brambles, muttering a curse under his breath as he rushed to catch up with him.

_“Jesus,_ I’m out of shape,” he wheezed, breath squeaking as he huffed it out of his lungs. Eddie almost would have felt sorry, under any other circumstance.

They came up to a small clearing, where Stan was posed, palms cupped around his mouth as he mimicked bird-calls, khakis perfectly straight where they tucked into his shoes.  He looked almost blissful, even with the dark circles under his eyes and the wounds snaking around his body. Eddie had forgotten that Stanley did this nearly every morning, retreating to the Barrens to watch the birds.  At least, that’s how it had been when they were kids. Eddie couldn’t imagine that Stan had returned to the same place as an adult for his morning endeavours, probably finding a new birdwatching place, just as he probably would once they all left Derry again.

The thought made Eddie feel unreasonably sad.

“Good morning, Staniel,” Richie said, clapping him on the back, apparently shedding whatever seriousness had taken ahold of him moments before, “out here singing the songs of your people, I see.”

“Whatever,” Stan sighed, rolling his eyes, and Eddie couldn’t help but noticed how red-rimmed they were, as if he had cried throughout the night.

_Go easy on him, _ Eddie tried to communicate telepathically to Richie

He must have gotten the message, because he simply patted him on the back and shot him an endeared look. 

Coming down the path from Richie’s house, Mike smiled broadly at them, glowing in the summer sun like some kind of Greek god, muscled arms strong and impressive under his shirt as he strode over to the group.

“G’morning!” he called cheerily, and Eddie thought to himself that when he smiled like that, he didn’t look all that different from when he was a kid.

A chorus of, “Good morning, Mike,” followed, and even Stanley grinned at the gesture as Mike pulled him into his side, pretending like he might put him in a headlock like some kind of pro wrestler.

“Thought you went back to Florida to hang with all the gators, Mike?” Richie teased, fighting back as Mike moved in to tackle him now.

“Very funny Trashmouth,” he said, amusement lilting his normally rich voice. He favoured them with a look so endeared it made Eddie squirm. “I love you all...you dumbasses.”

They looked at each other in bated breath before bursting into laughter, Richie slapping Mike’s shoulder where it dug into his collarbone, letting his face dip into the crook Mike’s neck.

“Oh, how we love you too, Mikey.”

“Damn straight,” he grinned, pushing Richie off of him and popping one knee out in typical farmboy fashion, “So,” he said, hands settled on his hips, “Who’s hungry?”

As they walked back through the Barrens to Richie’s house, Eddie caught Richie’s eye, and a rift of silent agreement passed through them. Nobody mentioned the kiss, or the way Eddie’s wedding ring sat at the bottom of Richie’s dusty motel dresser, and later that night, when Eddie retired back to his own room, he decided he wouldn’t mention his already packed suitcases standing like hulking shadows by the door, or his clammy palm that gripped the bronze doorknob as he slipped into the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hope you’re enjoying the fic! i’ve been responding to some of your comments recently and you guys are so sweet! i read each and every one of them and they mean the world to me, so if you’re enjoying my fic, please let me know in the comments!
> 
> follow me on tumblr @sweetiebrak for more behind-the-scenes content, including some artwork for this fic, and some reddie groupchats! if you by any chance want to share some artwork/tiktoks, etc of your own, feel free to send them over, i love talking to you guys! 
> 
> thank you so much for you continues support! ☺️
> 
> P.S. this fic is now available on wattpad by the same name under the username @ourladyresurrection ! <3


	35. Chapter Thirty Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While Eddie and Richie continue to reminisce over their childhood and the summer of 1989, they find themselves struggling to reconcile their repressed feelings for one another and the uneasy feeling of life back in Derry. Meanwhile, tensions are high after Bill and Stan's kiss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys! I don't know about you but my school district just announced that we get two weeks off because of this whole Corona/ COVID-19 situation- crazy! This literally never happens so maybe it's more serious than originally thought. It kind of sucks that everything is being cancelled but it is giving me some serious Losers Club zombie apocalypse au ideas... hmm ;) Feel free to come hang out with me on tumblr or shoot me a message here on ao3- hope you're staying safe and healthy, and enjoy the new chapter!

_  
_

_ ** July, 1989**_

_  
_

_Moonlight pored down on the metal sill, illuminating Richie’s hulking frame as he scaled the old brickwork, bathed in a pale white glow._

Even in the darkness of the night, the surroundings were comfortingly familiar to him. Familiar enough, in fact, that even through his cracked glasses lenses, he could see the ladder unlatch, knowing to fall forward onto carpeted floor rather than ten feet backward into the muddy garden encircling the house like a moat.  With a small grunt and a dull thud, Richie tumbled into Eddie’s room, not for the first time, but perhaps the last time they would truly remember. As he tugged the window shut, a sharp gust of wind snared him by the neck— far too cold for late July, and with an easy shudder, Richie stumbled away from the reach of the world outside. Maybe what immediately established this sense that something was off was the sight of Eddie— who was normally fast asleep by nine, even at the rebellious age of thirteen— awake and upright in his bed. Nights like this, nights where Richie climbed through his window with scrapes and bruises littering his body, he berated him for waking him up.  Though lately, the dark circles under Eddie’s eyes and the rumpled sheets wrapped in a noose-like grip around his ankles told Richie that Eddie was just as restless as him. 

He was used to the pushback— always some kind of pushback. That was how they  _worked__;_ Richie doing something stupid, Eddie getting annoyed, and then Richie saying something that annoyed him even further until both of them were at their wit’s end. Not tonight, though. Something had changed— Richie couldn’t see it or identify it and he had no real reason to think it apart from a slight chill to the air, but god, he could  feel it and somehow— God-help-him, he knew it to be true. The eerie feeling was only magnified when Eddie remained silent, staring blankly at the wall. It was a strangely harrowing sight, like seeing another car’s headlights beam down a deserted road. Maybe it was the idea that terror reached beyond your own psyche, that it was real and unscrupulously ruthless and could breed and spread like a cancer.

Richie almost turned around and left, feeling a shiver run down his spine, the air electric, floorboards groaning under his feet. 

_He’s just sleepwalking,_ Richie told himself, breathing a sigh of relief as he backed up towards the window. It was a cowardly move, but there was great comfort in cowardice, and after this summer, Richie found himself hard-pressed to muster any more courage.

He only made it two steps before Eddie spoke, quietly— almost shyly. “We almost  _ died_ , Richie.”

Richie lowered the window once again shut, all trepidation abandoned as he slowly made him way towards the bed, sitting down next to Eddie, who was shivering in his _ Thundercats_ t-shirt, bare calves lined with goosebumps and a fine layer of blonde hair.

He, too, found himself staring at the wall, a particularly nice shade of blue with faint pencil marks at regular intervals where Richie assumed Sonia tracked Eddie’s height. True to the higher-most pencil mark, Eddie had grown quite a bit over the summer; his feet nearly dangling off his tiny single bed, legs looking longer, shoulders a little broader, lean muscle taut under his skin.  They all looked older after the encounter— it was as if Derry was trying to squeeze the last of their adolescence out of them like a water balloon so they would fit into the rigid mold of adulthood. Things were changing and Richie hated to remark that in the newfound stubble growing on his face and the contact lenses that would soon replace his glasses, he saw the faint outline of the man he was to become. They were very quickly becoming the age that they realized they were losing that plausible deniability that no serious harm could ever befall them, losing that illusion that they were invincible and would never die and instead live forever and live well. It was then, in that moment, for the first time in his life that Richie was forced to face his own looming mortality.

He bit his lower lip, “But we didn’t,” he said simply. It was a weak comfort, but comfort nonetheless.

Honestly, he could hardly believe the words coming out of his own mouth. Every time he closed his eyes, it was like he was right back in that dark, rotted sewer. He would wake up practically  feeling the sludge swimming around his ankles like dead fish, and he would run fast enough to beat the devil, cold tears freezing on his face.

He turned to Eddie, “How’s the nightmares?”

Eddie’s face got that pallid tinge to it, hands fisting in the blanket pooled in his lap. Slowly, he shook his head, newly-grown curls dusting the back of his neck.

“Yeah,” Richie sighed, reclining back on the mattress. The bed creaked shrilly under him, “Me too.”

“We almost died,” Eddie whispered, and in some kind of queer, garbled tone, he repeated, “we almost  died!”

Eddie let out a muffled scream, or maybe a sob, his shoulders heaving like he was an epileptic and not an asthmatic.

Panic flared within Richie and a faint blush came over his cheeks, just below his startled eyes. He shot up, hand hovering over Eddie’s back, hoping to God Mrs. Kaspbrak wouldn’t come storming in, “Eddie, please don’t cry.  Shh, Eddie, don’t—“

Eddie’s head suddenly rolled back, and a choked, gasping sound came out of his mouth.

Richie’s eyes were wide as he fumbled around in his pocket for the spare inhaler he kept on him, but Eddie just dismissed it, and as he turned to look at him, Richie realized, much to his own horror, that Eddie was  _laughing._

“Eddie?” he said, feeling perhaps more scared now than when he thought he was sobbing.

Eddie snorted, “We almost died, Rich!” he giggled like a schoolgirl playing patty-cake. “All my life I’ve gotten nothing more than a scrape or a bruise, and I finally go outside, for real this time, without my mother, and I break my damned arm!” He held up the cast pointedly.

Richie’s eyes were wide, searching pointlessly around the room for someone, anyone who would better know what to do than him— anyone but him. He uselessly offered the aspirator again, but Eddie just laughed harder.

“God, Richie, I don’t need that!” he cried, “It’s just camphor and water! Greta...Mr. Keene...they told me.”

Richie slipped it wordlessly back in his pocket, still lost. He realized Eddie hadn’t even mentioned or better yet, seemed to  notice that Richie kept a spare in his left pocket. It was probably better that way, but he still felt an odd sense of disappointment.

Slowly, Eddie’s laughter puttered out and he got quiet again. “We almost died, Rich,” he groaned into his hands, the almost manic glee dissolving into some kind of quiet horror. “_Oh God.”_

Richie placed his hand gently on the small of his back, “It’s alright, Eds,” he said tensely, “it’s over.”

“But what if it’s not?” he whispered.

“Not what?”

Eddie looked almost spectral in the pale light, “What if it’s not really over?” he breathed, “All of this...what if It’s just waiting to come back?”

Richie didn’t have an answer for that even after countless nights pondering it himself, but by the way Eddie was looking at him, he suspected he wasn’t really looking for one in the first place. So Richie said nothing, instead beginning an amiable, welcome silence as they lay parallel to one another on the small bed.

Eddie looked curiously at his socked feet, “You took your shoes off this time,” he stated, more of a question than anything.

Eddie was always getting on Richie’s case for not removing his dirty sneakers before crawling into his room late at night, even chucking them out the window on one memorable occasion when Richie had cut and run through a particularly muddy garden to get away from the Bowers Gang late one night.

“Lost ‘em,” Richie murmured.

Eddie snorted, “Yeah right, like you can just  lose shoes. You’re full of shit.”

“I’m serious!”

“I’m not saying you’re not,” Eddie said calmly, “but you’re still full of shit.”

Richie laughed softly— not his usual obnoxious bark. It was nice, he thought, to not always have to put on an act sometimes. It made him feel like he was getting closer to truly being himself. He wasn’t of course— far from it, but sometimes this felt close enough.

Tonight was one those nights.

“Hmph,” Eddie said, reaching over and plucking his glasses off his face.

“I didn’t get into a fist-fight on my way over here, you know.”

“Oh, I know,” Eddie said, blowing on the lenses and frowning, “they’re just ugly as fuck.”

“Yowza, Eds, tell me how you really feel.”

He waited a beat, “I’m getting contact lenses soon.”

“That’s good,” Eddie said thoughtfully, “one less thing for Bowers to break.”

Richie snorted, “Yeah, he’ll just break my face instead.”

Eddie considered this, “‘Least he won’t call you four-eyes anymore.”

Richie shifted uncomfortably, “Yeah, well. Something tells me I’m not gonna have to worry about that asshole much longer.”

Eddie turned to him, blinking almost owlishly in the dark, the dim lamplight casting a weird shadow across his face.

“What do you mean you won’t have to deal with Bowers anymore?”

Richie looked away. Eddie’s brows furrowed in response.

“Rich—“

“Eddie, I’m moving away.”

A tense silence took to the room, heavy as lead. Richie could almost hear the blood roar in his ears, his heart writhing in his chest. He couldn’t place the expression on Eddie’s face.

“Oh.”

Richie looked down, “Yeah.”

Eddie bit his lip, and the room appeared to be much smaller, along with the space between them. They suddenly felt very close.

“Where?” he said finally.

Richie looked sidelong at him, “California.”

Eddie looked utterly baffled, voice quiet and nearly breaking under the forced, confused inflections as he tried to make sense of it all, “When?”

Richie looked away, the lump in his throat making his hard to speak, “Next year,” he said softly

“Oh,” Eddie said, suddenly clutching his aspirator in a death-grip, “why?”

Richie watched the ceiling with little interest, but he didn’t dare meet Eddie’s eye, “My parents want me to go to this advanced highschool. It’s supposed to be really good— university level math and all...good music program too.”

Eddie’s brows were drawn down, nose scrunched as if processing a remarkably difficult concept, “California...that’s—“

“Over 3000 miles away,” Richie finished.

“But that’s so far! You would never come back!”

“Eddie...”

He sighed, shoulders slumping as if five bricks bore down on them.

“I know.”

Eddie sat quietly for a moment, thumb tracing over his aspirator. Then, in a second burst of energy, he said, “You don’t have to do this, you know,” he babbled, “you’re almost eighteen, right? Just a few more years and your parents can’t force you to go! You can stay with Mike and finish highschool in Derry, and—“

“Eddie.”

Eddie looked chastened, looking at him with wide eyes, equal parts pleading as they were fearful as his face crumpled.

“I think...” Richie swallowed, looking at his glasses— the spidery cracks extending down the lense. “I think I want to go.”

“Oh,” Eddie said. God, did Richie ever hate that word.

Richie stared at the wall, “Derry is no place for people like me, Eds.”

“People like you? Richie, what—“

“Forget about it,” he dismissed. He looked at the window, a small breeze rattling into the room through a small crack. “I should probably go.”

“You can’t go without shoes,” Eddie said.

“The ladder fell.”

“Maybe you should stay,” Eddie said quietly, “just this once.”

Richie turned over, “Yeah...just this once.”

They turned off the bedside lamp, engulfing the room in darkness. Rusted pipes creaked and groaned within the walls, and if they strained their ears, they could almost make out the sound of rushing water churning through the sewer grates below.

Eddie shivered, “Richie, can you come closer?”

Richie’s heart thudded painfully hard in his chest as he slid behind Eddie, “Yeah, Eds, sure.”

He fidgeted, and within a few minutes, they were flush against each other, Eddie completely wrapped in Richie’s arms. Richie’s face was hot where it hung over Eddie’s shoulder, and it was only a few moments before Eddie’s laboured breaths melted into a final melancholic sigh as he slipped into a fitful sleep.

Some twenty minutes later as Richie was finally beginning to nod off, Eddie let out a muffled chorus of protests, body trembling and face screwed up in concern.

“Eds, Eds—“ Richie shook his shoulder, trying to rouse him out of his nightmare.

Eddie only turned over, shifting impossibly closer to Richie, burying his face in his sleeve and clutching the back of his shirt.

“Eddie?” he whispered, trying to look at his face.

But he was already fast asleep, and not daring to move, Richie held him to his chest and wondered if this time next year, someone else would be sneaking into Eddie’s room late at night when he couldn’t sleep.

Richie fell into a fitful sleep that night, not knowing that the next time he held Eddie, he would already be dead.

* * *

Bill looked Eddie in the eye, non- judgemental— Bill always had been remarkably understanding, even as a kid— but Eddie saw a glimmer of disappointment in his eye that made him swallow thickly, shifting his weight nervously.

He leaned one elbow on the counter, eyes unmoving on Eddie.

“I mean, come on Bill,” he said softly, “wouldn’t y—“

Bill set his coffee mug down on the table,  hard . There was a calm kind of anger brewing in him, like a thunderless storm, and Eddie found himself stepping back instinctually, the hairs on the back of his neck springing up on high alert.

“No,” he said, rubbing his face, stubble making a scratching sound against his palms, “but I guess there’s no right choice anymore, right?”

“Yeah,” Eddie said tensely, biting his lip, “I guess not.”

Bill looked at the suitcase in his hand, face unreadable as he nodded towards Eddie’s hand, wrapped tightly around the handle, “So you’re really—

* * *

_ —Leaving, huh?” _

Bill grinned sunnily at Stan, who was reluctantly placing a small cardboard box on top of a mountain of others nearly spilling over the metal ramp of the trunk.

“I could say the same about you,” he sighed, looking over at his shoulder and smoothing down his blue polo shirt before turning to look at Bill, his face tight and riddled with unease.

“Y-Y-Yeah,” Bill said amiably, the wind ruffling his hair. He looked over at the second moving truck parked just a few feet down the road, where movers were beginning to excavate his own house’s possessions, burly men in faded overalls filing out, an old couch in tow.

“Kinda f-f-funny how that w-w-worked out,” he said thoughtfully, “h-h-how everyone’s l-luh-leaving all of a s-s-sudden.”

Stan looked troubled, “Yeah, hundreds of miles away too.”

Bill looked sympathetically at him, clapping a hand on his shoulder, “It m-m-might not be so b-b-bad, S—S-Stanley. A n-nuh-new start! N-new school. No B-B-Bowers or Belch or—“

“I don’t want to leave, Bill,” he said suddenly, looking down at the pavement, “and I know you wanna get out of this...shitty town and I know that I should want to, too, but I don’t!” he shuddered, “I don’t want things to change, and I—“ he looked up at Bill, “I don’t want to forget.”

“D’awww,” Bill said awkwardly after a short pause, shifting from foot to foot, “we can s-s-still visit or s-suh-send p-p-postcards.”

A haunted look came over Stan’s face. A chill rippled through the air, and Bill found himself drawing his shirt closer to his chest.

“But The Losers Club will never be all together again.”

He shuddered. Of course Stan wasn’t right— they had to reunite eventually, right? Nobody goes through something together as significant as they did only to forget all about each other right after, right?  But somehow, even at that moment, Bill knew Stan was telling the truth. Years later he would look back upon that moment and remember the shadow that passed over his face and he would wonder how much, even at the age of thirteen, that Stan really knew.

“H-H-Hey,” Bill said, leaning down a bit to meet his eye, “Atlanta might not b-b-be so bad. Y-Y-You can look for new b-buh-birds there.”

Stan smiled for a moment, an almost dreamy look coming over his eye, “Maybe I’ll see an Eastern bluebird, or a Hermit thrush! I don’t have those ones yet and my dad just gave me this new camera—“ suddenly, his face fell, “But the birdbath...I won’t be able to see that anymore.”

Bill knew what he was talking about— the old cracked stone birdbath posted where the Standpipe used to be, before it was torn down and replaced not long after it opened. Stanley bird-watched there nearly every morning. He looked at him sympathetically, “I’m s-s-sure Mikey can s-suh-send you a p-p-postcard.”

He just stood there frowning.

Bill opened his arms, “C-Cuh-Come here.”

“Bowers,” Stan reminded him, but stepped closer anyways.

“W-W-What’s he gonna do about it? I’ll b-b-be halfway to P-P-Portland by then!”

They laughed then, the kind of laughter that was more torn out of you than naturally expressed, the kind that rattled in your chest and kind of made you hurt deep in your bones. They found themselves holding on tighter.

And then it was over and Stan was looking around uneasily before looking back up at Bill, his expression fraught.

“Bill, I—“

It was at that moment that Richie came bopping down the street, a disgruntled Eddie in tow. They both held frozen lemonades in their hands.

“You didn’t seemed to care about germs when you licked my rocket-pop!” Richie could be heard saying.

“That doesn’t mean you put your dirty mouth germs over  my straw!”

“You probably get more germs from kissing your mother!”

“Shut  _up__,_ Richie!”

“It was one sip!”

“They’re the  same flavour .”

“Yours was fuller, share the wealth, Eds!”

“Absolutely not!” Eddie squawked, “and  don’t call me Eds!”

“God, I could hear your bickering down the street,” Stan huffed, “don’t you two ever shut up?”

Bill let out a muffled laugh into his palm.

“What’s it to you, huh, kid?” Richie said in a low tenor. He slouched, flicking his jacket collar up, doing his best impression of Henry Bowers or some other deranged hoodlum. “I’ll crack you like a coconut, make you piss blood and vinegar, I’ll—“

“That’s enough, Richie,” Stan said shrilly.

Richie looked like he might continue, but Bill pinned him with a disapproving look and he kept quiet. “Ayuh,” he said good-naturedly and took a big slurp of lemonade, humming some indiscernible tune under his breath.

Eddie elbowed him, “Beep-beep, Richie.”

He looked at Bill and sighed, walking two steps and yanking him into a bone-crushing hug, “I can’t believe you’re really going.”

Richie and Stan looked at each other awkwardly. feeling as though they were impeding on a private moment. Bill and Eddie had always been close, Eddie looking up to him as a father-figure of sorts, or something of the like.

“Awe, don’t worry, Staniel, we love you too!” Richie said girlishly, making kissy noises at him.

Stan pushed him away with the flat of his palm to his chest, “Oh, get lost, Richie,” he said glumly.

Richie didn’t seem too concerned with the rebuke, watching Bill pat Eddie on the back.

“Here,” Eddie sniffed, handing him a crumpled X-Man comic, “I know these were always your favourite whenever you and me and Rich read comics together.”

Bill favoured him with a fond smile, “T-Thuh-Thanks, E-Eddie,” he ruffled his hair, and unlike when Richie did it, Eddie didn’t protest, only making a honking sound into the back of his hand as his nose began to run.

He turned to Stan, looking shyly at his feet before offering a small leather-bound book to him, “I thought maybe you could write about the different birds you see,” he said softly, eyes glittering with the sudden onslaught of tears, “you know...when you l-leave.”

Stan appeared floored by the gesture, looking like he was holding back tears of his own. He pulled him into a rare hug, patting his back, “Thank you, Eddie,” he whispered into his hair, “thank you.”

When Eddie pulled back, he was sniffling loudly, snot running down the better half of his face, cheeks flushed and sodden with tears. Richie offered out an arm, and Eddie ducked gratefully under it, Richie displaying an odd moment of tenderness that the Losers sometimes forget he was capable of.  It seemed though, with Eddie, Richie unearthed parts of himself that he maybe wouldn’t for anyone else.  As Bill helped Stanley load the rest if his things into the moving van, he overheard a hushed conversation between Richie and Eddie just a few feet away.

“Hey, Eds— _hey_, it’s alright, okay?” Richie laughed, tugging him into what appeared to be his armpit. It wasn’t really Richie’s fault though— it was just where Eddie happened to go up to on his lanky body.

Something came muffled from Eddie in response, who was now burying his face in Richie’s shirt sleeve.

Richie looked over his shoulder, casting a befuddled look and shrugging helplessly at Bill, as if to say _ ‘what are you gonna do about it?’ _ But Bill couldn’t help but notice the almost blinding glimmer of pride in Richie’s face as he beamed down at Eddie practically using his t-shirt as a snot rag.

Richie whispered something to him, having to bend over comically far to accomplish such a feat and Eddie pulled back, slapping his arm lightly and squeaking, “Beep-beep, asshole!”

Looking around at the dwindling June sunlight as his friends were basked in a peculiar orange glow, he had no idea that by the time summer erupted like a candle flame sputtering to life, he would have already begun to forget their faces.

* * *

Bill’s memories of Derry were as quickly fleeting as the horizon line as their car barrelled towards Portland, where he would go on to start a new life, and in novel time, forget the one he had left behind. By the time dusk had settled, the moon one big Christmas ornament hanging over the foliage of the passing woods, they were miles away from his hometown, sweet and secure in its likeliness.

There was that one saying about how oftentimes, that which is furthest from you, is the easiest to love. And that might have been true for Bill.

But like a clock striking twelve, the ghostglow of its surface beaming down into the ravenous night, as the skyline melted into the horizon, Derry was nothing more than a blur in his mind’s eye— a small smudge in his otherwise normal adolescence that would follow.

Bill braced himself against the counter, feeling as though someone had poured liquid static directly into his veins. He sighed, the sound heavy, like something had physically rolled off his chest and onto the ground below.  Here they were, all together again. They had messed it up the first time, and Bill could only pray that they were doing it right this time around. 

_Please, God, _ he thought,  _ please, God let this be right._

He turned to Eddie:

“Need help with your bags?”

* * *

_ “You were supposed to be gone by now”  _

Richie pivoted his head to a frowning Eddie, tanned arms crossed almost petulantly over his chest. He probably had looked the very image of whatever slim semblance of bravery he possessed in his being. Looking back years later, Eddie would realize that this very moment, though he didn’t know it at the time, would be the last time in twenty-seven years that he would truly take a stand against something—  for something.

“Sorry to disappoint, Eds,” Richie grinned over his shoulder, haphazardly shoving a pair of jeans into his suitcase— assaulted by gross amounts of iron-on patches starting to fray at the seams. “My folks were getting on my ass about some stuff.”

Eddie frowned, and Richie sighed when he noticed his face twist in disapproval.

“They’re good parents, Eds. They’re just...” Richie waved his hands nonsensically before letting them fall on his hips, “scattered—sometimes.”

Eddie snorted, “I can see where you get it from now, your luggage looks like a bomb hit it.”

Richie smiled, gesturing pointedly at the suitcase, teeth of the zipper closed around rumpled fabric, looking as though it might actually implode and paint the colours of Richie’s being across the bedroom walls.

“Oh, this ol’ thing? You’re too kind, Eds. I’m thinking of patenting it— what do you think sounds better: ‘Richie Tozier’s Tornado’ or...” he held up a crumpled sock, “‘Dirty Sock No. 3?’”

“That’s disgusting,” Eddie said, brushing past Richie with surprising effectiveness given their increasingly obvious height difference. “Here, let me—“

He ripped open the suitcase, gnarled teeth of the zipper line squeaking shrilly as the contents emptied themselves onto the bed. Eddie shot Richie a chastening look and began to fold, nestling the clothes into neat little rows down the interior pocket.

“You’re good at this,” Richie remarked, apparently deciding not to meddle in the process as he began to collect his records, placing one under the needle, soft music beginning to fill the room.

“Yeah, well, I help my Ma with the laundry sometimes.”

“Of course you do,  _Eddie-Bear,” _ Richie cooed, sorting the record sleeves into an empty milk crate, a big red stamp imprinted on the side, reading:

_ Derry, Maine. _

It felt wrong somehow, like the only thing you were able to escape with from Derry was your own mind, if you were lucky. Yes, it was decidedly wrong in Eddie’s fuzzy mind. You shouldn’t be able to take a—

—souvenir?” Richie’s voice cut through his thoughts.

“Huh?”

“I said, planning on taking those as a souvenir?” Richie repeated, nodding towards the pair of boxers clutched in Eddie’s hand that he had neglected to fold.

“Huh? No, ew!” Eddie turned bright red, cheeks flaming like a campfire in dry season. He threw the underwear as if it had a nasty disease, and knowing Richie, it wasn’t entirely out of the question. 

The thought would have sent a shiver down Eddie’s back had he not been paralyzed by the sight of a small blue object wedged between two of Richie’s favourite t-shirts, oddly neat compared to the rest of the luggage— as if it’d been packed with great care.  The silver chamber winked in the light of the room like a polished dime, or those old ball bearings—locked and loaded in Bill’s aluminium Bullseye slingshot that summer as the werewolf’s grey steel eyes pierced through them like a fishhook, unravelling their guts before their eyes.  
  


“Richie, what’s this?”

“Probably your mom’s underwear, Eds. Sorry- wanted a souvenir.”

Richie looked over his shoulder, tossing Eddie a wink like someone might toss a coin into a well. Eddie hardly noticed it, struck impossibly still as he looked at the object in his hand.

“No, Richie, not that!” he held out the blue inhaler, “_This_.”

Richie visibly paled at the sight, and it did nothing but mitigate the preexisting confusion snaring Eddie by the chest.

“My old aspirator. Richie, I lost this months ago, what’s it doing in your suitcase?”

Eddie realized he hadn’t actually had asthma years ago, and therefore hadn’t used his inhaler much since then. But oftentimes in moments of dire need, he found himself clutching it to his mouth even still. He had lost that inhaler ages ago, leaving it on a sun-bleached rock near the Quarry only to return to find it missing. He had looked for it for hours- - _Richie_ had looked for it for hours, and now here it was, right in Richie’s suitcase.

“Richie?”

He sighed, scrubbing his hands over his face and looking up to face Eddie once more, “Fine. Okay, look— that day in the Quarry, you went cliff-diving with Big Bill and you left your aspirator just lying there, and…I took it.”

Eddie frowned, still not understanding why he would do such a thing, “But why? You don’t have asthma, do you? Richie you should have told me—“

Richie interrupted him, holding up hand, “Eds,” he laughed, “I don’t have asthma…neither do you.”

He frowned, “Okay, but then why would you take my inhaler?”

Richie’s bemused smile fell like a curtain descending down a stage, his eyes were wide and deer-like, like a man suddenly thrust into blinding spotlight. Riche, Eddie had come to realize over the years, had two coping mechanisms when placed under considerable stress — crack jokes, or go on the defensive. His first option having failed, he resorted to the latter.

“I don’t _know!”_ he said, throwing his hands up before catching them tightly in his lap, fiddling with the cheap rings slid over his knuckles. “Seeing it lying there made me think about what would happen if you lost your aspirator one day for real! And we didn’t know your asthma was made up back then, so I didn’t know what was gonna happen and I didn’t wanna wait around to find out!”

A strange warmth had begun to fill Eddie, seemingly radiating from somewhere inside his chest. Richie seemed oblivious to the hearth sputtering to life in front of him, continuing his heated tirade.

“I knew your mom would get you another one, I can’t imagine her leaving you without one for a day—

_True, Mrs. Kaspbrak had practically dragged Eddie to the pharmacy that day, lecturing him the entire walk there, even buying several spares, paranoid as previously unrealized fears reared their ugly head, threatening her frail, defenceless son._

_—_so I took it so we’d always have an extra, just in case…”

“Richie,” Eddie stopped him, “it’s okay.”

Richie’s eyes popped open, looking uncertain, as though Eddie might suddenly retract his statement and rip into him. His stomach hurt to think about how many times someone must have lied to Richie to would warrant such an instinct.

“It’s okay,” he repeated, eyes lingering on him for a moment before turning them back down to his hands, “thank you.”

Richie blinked owlishly behind his clunky glasses frames, a hairline crack on one lens splicing his eye into some odd kaleidoscopic image. Eddie swallowed and Richie nodded, the tension amiably dispersing from the air. He let out a relieved breath, leaning against the wall.

“How do you think Bill and Stan are doing?” Richie asked quietly, biting at his nails.

Eddie didn’t even tell him off for the bad habit, just sighing, shoulders raising in something like a shrug, “I don’t know” he said honestly, “I haven’t heard from them.”

“Yeah, me neither.”

It had been a solid year since Stan and Bill had left Derry, promising to send postcards, to write, to call, if they somehow managed to convince their parents to pay extra for a long distance phone call. Bill had been dead-set on sending all of the Losers Club a copy of his book manuscript he had been working on…but none of those things had happened. It was as if the moment Bill and Stan crossed the town line, they had forgotten all about Derry, and everyone in it.

The thought sent chills up Eddie’s spine.

“Do you…” Eddie cut himself off, blushing, “never mind.”

“Do I what?” Richie asked, looking sincere for once in his life.

Eddie sighed, “Do you think…when you leave…that you’ll…”

_Spit it out, Eds, you’re not Stuttering Bill._

“You know…will you…”

“Will I what?”

“I don’t know!” He cried, feeling like a livewire sparking clumsily as he fumbled with his words, tongue feeling impossibly heavy and thick in his mouth, “Will you forget—

_(me)_

Derry?”

Richie looked as though Eddie had just asked him if he thought monkeys could be astronauts, or if the ocean could be made of chocolate milk.

“What? No!” he said quickly, looking somewhat offended by the implication, “I’m _not_ gonna forget, Eds. I don’t think I could if I tried.”

“Bill and Stan did,” Eddie said quietly, feeling very scared and very small as he drew his arms close to his chest. He shivered and found himself longing to slip the jean jacket lying in the unopened suitcase beside him.

He didn’t, and dismissed the new, confusing thoughts that ate at him relentlessly. It was getting harder and harder to make sense of much of anything these days, and so it seemed that the further and further the Losers Club strayed from one another, the less sense it all made. Because unity was protection, and it seemed that so long as they were all together, they were immune to the strange, senseless happenings of the world. Eddie suddenly found himself terrified at the idea of living In a Richie-less Derry.

“Well, I’m not Bill or Stan,” Richie said almost angrily. And then he looked at Eddie and his eyes seemed to soften. “I’ve known Derry my whole life. I know Derry inside and out, I’ve seen the good and the bad. I care about Derry…” he blushed, looking away, “I think I love…_Derry.”_

“Uh,” Eddie said, furrowing his brows. Wasn’t this the same Richie who wrote profanities on the inside of the town's bathroom stalls? And why couldn’t Eddie shake the feeling that Richie wasn’t really talking about Derry at all?

And if not Derry, what? Or _who?_

The idea of Richie having someone to miss sent a peculiar wave of jealousy through him, and he found it hard to meet Richie’s eye.

Richie turned back to him, face only slightly flushed now, “Look, Eds, I’m not gonna forget, okay?”

Eddie looked at him uncertainly.

Richie grabbed his face, not unlike how he did back in the Neibolt house that summer. His fingertips seemed to burn where they grazed Eddie’s face, “I’m not going to forget.”

All of the emotions brewing in the pit of Eddie’s stomach crescendoed as Richie stood there in front of him, their faces mere inches apart.

_I care about Derry, _the words echoed in his mind, _I think I love Derry_.

Inches apart. Soon there would be miles— hundreds of them, and then years, decades…it was just them, no Bowers or Belch or Patrick Hockstetter. It would be so easy to just lean forward, to just, just—

And then Richie stood up, grinning, “I’ll be sending Mrs. K a postcard,” he winked.

“Shut up, Richie,” Eddie sighed, and the moment was over.

_“Eddiebear!”_ A shrill voice called him from downstairs, _“Eddieee!”_

Eddie huffed out a breath— yes, even after standing up to his mother last summer, it seems he had reverted back to his old ways, and Mrs. Kaspbrak had never been happier. Richie quirked an eyebrow at him and he just shook his head. He couldn’t explain it if he tried.

“I guess that’s my cue to leave,” Eddie said reluctantly, standing up. He might have tried to push his luck a year ago, but it seems as though all his newfound courage had slunk back into the shadows from which it emerged, once again stuck under his mother’s thumb.

“Oh! I guess I better give you this,” Richie said, offering the aspirator back to him.

“Keep it,” Eddie found himself saying.

Richie stared at him, puzzled.

“Souvenir,” Eddie said weakly, and they shared a laugh— a welcome laugh, even if it was strained.

“Well…I guess I’ll see you around, Eds,” he said awkwardly, towering over Eddie at this angle as they faced each other, both of them waiting…waiting for _what?_

Whatever they were waiting for, however, didn’t come, because then Eddie was stepping towards the door.

“Yeah, Richie,” he said softly, “see you around.

As Eddie stepped out the bedroom door, he paused a moment, watching Richie perched atop his bed, holding Eddie’s aspirator and gazing at it with a fixed interest.

“Richie?”

Richie turned to him, looking surprised— as though broken out of a dream, “Yeah, Eds?”

Eddie swallowed, offering a weak smile, “Send me a postcard.”

As Eddie walked out the door, starting down the steps, he could hear the soft sound of music following him from where it played in Richie’s room.

> _"Then I wake up, and you're not there,_
> 
> _Pain finds me everywhere._
> 
> _Oh, but you don't care_
> 
> _Don't forget me when I'm gone_
> 
> _For heaven's sake_
> 
> _I have loved you for so long_
> 
> _It's nothin' wrong"_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song is "Don't Forget Me (When I'm Gone) by Glass Tiger- classic 80's bop and always makes me think of Reddie. ;) If you're interested in more music that goes with the fic, check out my playlist on Spotify! Hope you guys enjoyed the new chapter, due to spring break I'll be trying to get into a more regular posting schedule, I usually aim for a new chapter every Friday at 6pm EST, but obviously as a high school student, things always come up. The best way to keep up to date with the story is to subscribe to the story and my account and join my tumblr group chat for the fic @sweetiebrak! To everyone supporting this story, thank you so much for your kind words and interactions, I truly do see each and every one of them and I recognize those of you who frequently comment! 
> 
> Stay safe and healthy and leave a comment below if you enjoyed! :)

**Author's Note:**

> This will be a continued slowburn fic, so be sure to subscribe to get notifications when a new chapter is released! Kudos and comments are greatly appreciated, I love to hear your feedback! You can send me Reddie requests over on tumblr @pastelreddie, so be sure to follow for exclusive Reddie content. :)


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